Teaching the Art of Compassion: Herberger College of Fine Arts and Mayo Clinic Partnership

 

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Mayo Clinic nurses Annie and Joanne can tell the patient they are visiting is in pain. Radiation therapy has helped ease his discomfort, but both he and his wife are clearly in distress as he shifts in bed, trying to relieve the aching in his bones.

 

As Annie and Joanne speak with the couple, they let them voice their concerns about the man’s bone cancer while assuring them that the clinic will do everything it can to keep him comfortable. Slowly, the nurses ask if the couple would like to visit their children as they help the couple accept that the cancer is terminal.

 

For the nurses, it’s easy to forget that the patient in front of them is not really terminally ill, but a Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) Acting student from the School of Theatre and Film at ASU Herberger College of Fine Arts enacting an end-of-life scenario to help Mayo nurses develop the sensitivity and communication skills they will need for such situations. By viewing videotapes of these sessions, nurses can reflect on the way certain words, body language, and listening skills help comfort patients.
 
“Theatre is an integral component of our larger community,” states Jeff McMahon, an assistant professor in ASU’s School of Theatre and Film who facilitated the original role playing scenarios. “This partnership between ASU and the Mayo Clinic shows this by teaming two populations that aren’t usually brought together – theatre and medical professionals – in a way that helps them deepen their skills while improving medical care for all of us.”

 

In January, 2005, Denise K. Betcher, the unit based educator at the Mayo Clinic, contacted McMahon with the idea of using ASU theatre graduate students to enact end-of-life scenarios with Mayo nurses. Originally, Mayo intended to use its own nurses to play the patients. However, Betcher decided actors could create more realistic scenarios and help nurses develop the palliative care skills they need to relieve the emotional and physical pain of chronically ill patients.

 

To help actors prepare for their roles, Betcher used her experiences as a certified hospice and palliative nurse to create information sheets for the theatre students, outlining the illnesses their characters were diagnosed with. The eight ASU graduate theatre students who participated in the original session met with Betcher, who spoke to them about palliative care and encouraged them to consider the emotional and spiritual concerns a patient would experience after being given a terminal diagnosis. 

 

“The partnership gelled very well,” says Betcher, who adds the program received an unexpected addition when a nursing student participated in one of the scenarios, allowing the Mayo Clinic to realize the importance of involving students in their program. Their current role playing scenarios pair Mayo nurses with nursing students, many from the ASU College of Nursing and Healthcare Innovation.

 

These scenarios help nurses deal with difficulties they may have with patients. “Some nurses, especially new graduates, aren’t always comfortable allowing themselves to feel in front of a patient,” states Liz Rice, a nurse manager for the Mayo Clinic. “By role playing an end-of-life scenario or watching a videotape of a scenario, these nurses learn that it’s okay to show compassion in front of a terminally ill patient.”

 

Rice finds the partnership fills a crucial aspect in the education of doctors and nurses. “In medical school, they place a strong emphasis on how to make people better – they don’t show you how to ease a death,” she states. “This program helps us learn to listen to what our patients want and be respectful of their wishes if they want to be taken off their treatment. We’re also responsible for giving them the facts to make an informed decision – but it still has to be their decision.”

 

Such decisions can be difficult when the patient must consider not only their situation but also their family’s wishes. To prepare nurses for these situations, certain scenarios include actors playing family members who do not agree with the patient’s decision to be taken off life support or continue taking a certain treatment. Observing or acting out these situations helps nurses develop the mediating skills they will need when such issues arise.

 

The intensity of playing a terminally diagnosed patient or the family member of a patient had a profound effect on the actors, both professionally and personally.

 

“It was like going to war,” recalls Angela Giron, who participated in the program back in 2005 while completing her MFA in Theatre. “I needed to access very deep parts of myself. I had to acknowledge my own mortality – the idea that one day I could be at the Mayo Clinic as a patient.”

 

Giron, who now works as an instructor for the theatre program developing at ASU’s Polytechnic campus, drew upon her personal experiences to prepare for her role as a mother who wants to be taken off of her breathing machine. Having experienced the death of her father and her husband, Giron found that by reflecting on those moments, she was able to access their state of mind during their final hours.

 

“You could feel the distress coming from her,” marvels Betcher, who remembers being amazed and unnerved by how effectively Giron was able to simulate breathing problems. Along with two other ASU graduate students who portrayed her character’s daughters, Giron created a performance so realistic that at one point a nurse offered her oxygen.

 

McMahon thinks the partnership enhances student acting skills by encouraging them to create characters based on observations of real life, while asking them to dig down into their own experiences of death, illness, and emotional upheaval. This work can create much more honest and nuanced interactions then those students see on film or television.

 

“Because the interactions between nurses and actors are very specific, detailed, and purpose-driven, not ratings-driven, they can bring out more honest performances from the actors as well as help nurses develop skills for palliative care,” he says. “I want theatre students engaged in the real world; if they are not, their fictional world will be incomplete.”

 

In October, 2006, the Mayo Clinic created another role playing scenario with the aid of Hospice of the Valley, a not-for-profit hospice, that involved new ASU theatre and nursing students and Mayo nurses. Based on the success of their partnership, Herberger College of Fine Arts, the Mayo Clinic, and Hospice of the Valley would like the program to expand and become a regular part of ASU’s theatre program.

 

“This partnership has enormous potential for growth and evolution,” states McMahon. In the future, Betcher and McMahon would like to create scenarios that develop nurse and doctor sensitivity to the cultural and religious needs of patients. Giron would like nurses to role-play scenarios that allow nurses to help children deal with the death of a parent or loved one. While the audience for this project is currently limited to nursing students at Mayo, training DVDs of these role playing sessions could extend that audience to hospitals across Arizona and the U.S.

 

Ultimately, all participants in this program feel they have benefited from the combined talents of the theatre and medical community. Many recognize the long-term effects their efforts will bring.

 

“Actors who participate in this partnership can use their talents to make a difference in the community with very direct consequences,” states Giron. “One day nurses could be using the skills they learned from these scenarios to ease the pain of your mother, your brother, your father – or even you.”

 

Learn more about the partnership between Herberger College and the Mayo Clinic by reading their press release.

 

Michael Jung, ASU in the Community feature writer
Michael.Jung@asu.edu
(480) 965-0335

 

To learn more about how ASU is engaged with the community, please visit ASU in the Community’s Program Database which connects you to a wide variety of specific ASU outreach efforts.