Alas, poor patients! Doctors get acting classes to improve bedside manner
HOSPITALS are sending junior doctors to acting workshops to learn how to speak properly to patients.
They are taught skills in mime, dance and even clowning to relieve stress and behave more compassionately.
The workshops, partly funded by the taxpayer, are run by actors who instruct the doctors to walk around the room with their eyes closed to appreciate being vulnerable, and to run into each other and off walls to become more ‘self-aware’.
They last for three days spread over several weeks and are being run at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals and King’s College Hospital in London, and at the Royal United Hospitals in Bath. But many other hospitals now demand that junior doctors spend at least half a day having ‘communication training’ with actors or ‘mindfulness’ coaches.
Joyce Robins, co- director of Patient Concern, said: ‘To have to go to acting classes is quite pathetic. If a good bedside manner doesn’t come naturally to them then they are in the wrong profession.’ She added: ‘I expect doctors and nurses to be welleducated and well-spoken – and well-educated, well-spoken peo- ple should already be quite capable of treating people compassionately and properly.’
Dr Jonathan Stanley, a junior doctor and academic, said he was taken off a ward for half a day to attend a mandatory communication course several years ago.
He was told by an actor to pretend to be a giraffe – and wear a headband with ears – as it had a big heart and was able to see what was going on. Dr Stanley, a member of the Bow Group Tory think-tank, said: ‘It’s the modern touchy feely culture. If medics spent more time before med school working on real wards witnessing suffering they wouldn’t need acting lessons.’
Some medical professionals say the workshops are highly effective for improving communication, particularly when doctors are under so much stress.
Dr Andrew Goddard, consultant gastroenterologist and spokesman for the Royal College of Physicians, said: ‘Anything that can improve how doctors, nurses and patients interact has got to be a good thing.’
He said most hospitals now sent cancer specialist nurses and doctors on these courses – as well as junior doctors – and he had attended one himself. These are run by private firms employing experts in mindfulness, communication and meditation which are paid by the hospital trusts.
The ‘performing arts’ workshops being held by the three hospital trusts are run by the charity Clod Ensemble, which receives public money through the Arts Council.
Suzy Willson, its artistic director and founder, said: ‘ Our courses help to develop skills which include self- care, selfawareness, stress management and teamwork so that health care professionals are better equipped to provide the high quality, compassionate care to which we all aspire.
‘The project started when I realised that some of the physical, practical techniques I had learnt through theatre training could be useful for health care professionals in how they communicate with patients and their families.’
‘It’s the touchy feely culture’