Communication and collaboration are central to healthcare, and there are many tools for improving teamwork among medical facility staff members. Medical improv is an increasingly popular experiential strategy that adapts concepts and activities from theater improvisation to improve communication-related skills among healthcare professionals and critical outcomes in organizations.
The Background of Medical Improv
Beth Boynton is a nurse, author, educator, consultant, and medical improv expert. In describing medical improv and its impact, Boynton states, “We’ve known for over 20 years that communication, leadership, and human factors are leading root causes of sentinel events, yet many interventions have been unsuccessful in attempting to ensure best outcomes. Medical improv promotes essential competencies experientially where effective learning needs to occur.”
Boynton continues, “Medical improv provides professional development in competencies associated with emotional intelligence, interprofessional and therapeutic communication, teamwork, and leadership. These competencies, in turn, impact patient safety, patient experience, the health and well-being of the workforce, and even cost-effectiveness.”
Although it uses techniques from theatrical improv, medical improv is not focused on performance.
Boynton clarifies, “By taking the focus off of performance and entertainment and putting it on the learning process and healthcare teams’ goals, staff taking part in medical improv training have the opportunity to practice being together in a safe space outside of their usual stressful clinical environments. In this context, they can build caring, respectful relationships, and even laugh a little together as they learn about themselves and each other.”
“Experiential activities are integrated with other teaching methods (e.g., lectures, discussion, and reading materials) to address skill-building and/or outcome-related topics, “Boynton adds.
“The traditional teaching methods provide intellectual context about the topic and the experiential activity provides fun opportunities to practice skills with peers, reflect on one’s own behavior or habits, and discuss relevance to healthcare goals. The combination is much more effective than either of these teaching methods alone, and experienced medical improv practitioners can tweak activities to meet a variety of goals and objectives.”
“Yes And….”
A central exercise in the theatrical and medical improv worlds is “Yes And.” In this exercise, any idea one participant says is immediately enthusiastically accepted and validated by their partners. Rather than countering an idea with “No, but,” which can derail creative thinking, saying “yes and” allows the person sharing to continue thinking aloud without interruption. This strategy can be directly applied to actual meetings and brainstorming sessions to stimulate creativity and collaboration.
In another exercise known as “Radical Acceptance,” participants enthusiastically respond with “Yes!” no matter what their peers may say.
Boynton shares, “Some of the dynamic magic of this process is that some people will learn to listen better at the same moment that someone else is learning to be more assertive. By listening, we teach each other to speak up, and by speaking up, we teach each other to listen — these exercises provide a structure for that.”
Skill-Building with Medical Improv
Discussing the skills built using medical improv, Boynton points out that the experience of medical improv can improve communication, bolster social development, increase emotional intelligence, and strengthen interprofessional collaboration.
“These experiences can also help to reduce stress, burnout, and bullying behavior and increase patience, empathy, and forgiveness,” Boynton points out. “This can all be accomplished while allowing participants to learn how to take ownership of their experience and learn from their communication-related mistakes.”
Boynton adds, “Through exposure to medical improv, healthcare professionals become more able to learn from diversity, contribute to cultures of safety, and enjoy their work. Participants experience improved relationships and teamwork, less bullying, blaming, and burnout. Just as you can feel the tension in the air between stressed-out professionals in a team, participants experiencing medical improv can feel relief from these persistent and pervasive problems.”
In describing her work with healthcare teams and medical improv, Boynton is keen to clarify that every participant’s experience is different, and all come to this type of work from their own level of emotional development and experience.
Everyone is different in terms of their comfort level and the emotional risk that might be involved in developing emotional intelligence, and communication and relational skills. It requires expert facilitation to create a safe enough environment to ensure the best learning experience for everyone.”
Boynton adds, “It also requires familiarity with a variety of activities and the risk level involved. Workshops must be designed to gradually increase the risk level of activities so that people gain confidence in themselves and their peers, and trust in the facilitators.”
In terms of her approach, Boynton elucidates, “I invite and sometimes nudge folks to step into their stretch zones, and I promise to make their experience as successful as possible. It’s also helpful to explain to participants that medical improv is not about improv comedy or telling jokes, and I reassure them that they’re likely to have the most fun if they don’t try to be funny.”
“I welcome all healthcare professionals to explore medical improv resources while also advising that experiencing it is the best way to understand how it works and why it is such an incredible teaching process.”
Boynton concludes, “I see healthcare leaders, managers, and positive change agents as perfectly positioned to learn about the process and integrate activities into their staff meetings. With a commitment to learning how to teach these simple yet profoundly effective skills, this is an affordable and time-efficient intervention that any earnest leader can use for the benefit of all.”
- Should Nurses Try to Get Published? - September 2, 2024
- The Unexamined (Nursing) Life - August 29, 2024
- Understanding Functional Medicine - August 22, 2024
