Drama as a pedagogical tool for practicing death notification-experiences from Swedish medical students

BMC Medical Education

Research Article

Anncristine Fjellman-Wiklund¹  Anna Nordström²  Tomas Grysell³ 

[1] Department of Community Medicine and Rehabilitation, Physiotherapy, Umeå University, S-901 87, Umeå, Sweden;Department of Surgical and Perioperative Science, Sports Medicine, Umeå University, S-901 85, Umeå, Sweden;Department of Community Medicine and Rehabilitation, Rehabilitation Medicine, Umeå University, S-901 87, Umeå, Sweden;Division for Development of Teaching and Learning, Uppsala University, S-751 20, Uppsala, Sweden;

关键词: Medical Student;    Body Language;    Qualitative Content Analysis;    Health Care Staff;    Affective Domain;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6920-11-74

 received in 2011-05-17, accepted in 2011-09-28,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundOne of the toughest tasks in any profession is the deliverance of death notification. Marathon Death is an exercise conducted during the fourth year of medical school in northern Sweden to prepare students for this responsibility. The exercise is designed to enable students to gain insight into the emotional and formal procedure of delivering death notifications. The exercise is inspired by Augusto Boal's work around Forum Theatre and is analyzed using video playback. The aim of the study was to explore reflections, attitudes and ideas toward training in delivering death notifications among medical students who participate in the Marathon Death exercise based on forum play.MethodsAfter participation in the Marathon Death exercise, students completed semi-structured interviews. The transcribed interviews were analyzed using the principles of qualitative content analysis including a deductive content analysis approach with a structured matrix based on Bloom's taxonomy domains.ResultsThe Marathon Death exercise was perceived as emotionally loaded, realistic and valuable for the future professional role as a physician. The deliverance of a death notification to the next of kin that a loved one has died was perceived as difficult. The exercise conjured emotions such as positive expectations and sheer anxiety. Students perceived participation in the exercise as an important learning experience, discovering that they had the capacity to manage such a difficult situation. The feedback from the video playback of the exercise and the feedback from fellow students and teachers enhanced the learning experience.ConclusionsThe exercise, Marathon Death, based on forum play with video playback is a useful pedagogical tool that enables students to practice delivering death notification. The ability to practice under realistic conditions contributes to reinforce students in preparation for their future professional role.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Nordström et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.