Medical Student as Playwright: Dramatizing Imelda

Abstract

Critical engagement with fiction has the potential to prompt development of personal empathy. Playwriting can foster an even deeper understanding of patient space and motivation by challenging students with the responsibility of creating characters, bringing to light common misperceptions of societal intersections and highlighting awareness of societal complexities. The opportunity to animate characters provides students the chance to examine difficult themes within a safe space environment. For three years our medical students have been prompted to write a script inspired by Richard Selzer’s short story “Imelda” which addresses issues of access, equality, gender, race and class in an international setting, as well as ethical considerations in best practices. Students are instructed on the mechanics of scriptwriting, and are expected to write one complete scene. Students then participate in an in-class scriptwriting workshop where they are asked to assign roles to classmates and direct a staged reading for the class, after which a discussion takes place. Throughout the process, students imagine the life of another, and move beyond their own comfort zones to articulate that life in a creative and expressive way. This process is much like those which exist in the practice of medicine involving communication, active listening, close attention to nuance, collaboration and performance. This paper examines the benefits of incorporating an applied theatre playwriting workshop into medical education, specifically within a narrative medicine curriculum and included samples of text from student scripts, a larger analysis of the two-year exercise, and recommendations for future iterations.