Suzanne Gordon; Author, Lecturer and Patient Advocate

In recent years there has been greater awareness of the necessity for teamwork in health care. Working on teams is critical not only to morale but to patient safety. Poor communication among health care personnel is as much a factor in errors – indeed even more so – than competence and proficiency. Over the years, I’ve written a lot about doctor/nurse relationships. As I considered how this material could be used to improve the workplace environment, I began to think more and more about turning some of my interviews and concerns into some sort of dramatic presentation. A play about doctor/nurse relationships, I felt, would be a useful teaching tool for medical and nursing students as well as for working doctors and nurses. But who was I to write play? After all I’m just a journalist? (Believe me, that didn’t hold me back.)  Well, in collaboration with playwright Lisa Hayes (more on this in a minute) we wrote a play that has been presented all over the country.  It’s called Bedside Manners.  Here are some clips from the 45 minute play as well as an interview with myself and Lisa Hayes.

More on the History of the Writing of Bedside Manners

In the summer of 2003 I met the wonderful actor/director/playwright Lisa Hayes. At the time, Lisa was appearing off Broadway in Manhattan in her one-woman play about a nursing strike called Nurse. I went to one of her performances, introduced myself when it was over, and asked her if she’d be interested in collaborating on a play about doctor/nurse relationships. I told her that I had many tapes of interviews of nurses talking about doctors and doctors talking about nurses. These could be used as material for a production.

To my surprise, Lisa jumped at the offer. Then to my even bigger surprise, Lisa called a couple of weeks later, just as I was off to work in Australia for almost a month. She told me she’d gotten a grant to perform our play – one which hadn’t even been written –at the State University of New York at Buffalo at the end of September. Suddenly we didn’t only have collaboration, we had a deadline: we had to have the play written, and rehearsed in just a little over a month. How can we possibly do this, I wondered?

But Lisa is amazing. We made the deadline and have been working together ever since.

Over the past few years, we have worked hard to make sure that our represents the views of both doctors and nurses and doesn’t unfairly scapegoat either profession. Everything in the play has happened. Nothing– not a single incident — is made up. Our hope is that the play will be used as a teaching tool to kick start productive discussions between physicians and nurses about teamwork and patient safety. We’ve performed the play at the New York Academy of Medicine, Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, The National Teaching Institute of the American Association of Critical Care Nurses in Atlanta, Georgia and Anaheim, Califorinia as well as at other venues.

The play is usually performed as reader’s theater with three actors. Generally, it is followed by a half hour discussion in which actors, playwrights and director talk with the audience about the play and teamwork in health care. It is also offered followed by a a two- and –a- half -hour workshop in which the audience is able to discuss issues of teamwork in more depth. Groups have licensed the play and cast it themselves with local professional or amateur actors. Other groups have invited Lisa Hayes to cast, direct and perform in the play herself. I have participated in a number of these productions leading follow-up discussions and workshops, which have been very productive.  For those interested in utilizing the play as a teaching tool, a companion workbook, with suggested questions, re-scripting of scenes, and readings is available.

For further information about licensing or organizing a performance of the play contact me or Lisa Hayes at Lhayes@janeeyre.com

Reviews

“Bedside Manners is a powerful learning tool for health professional students across the disciplines to engage in important and challenging conversations about practice, team work and professional conduct.” - Sioban Nelson, RN PhD. Dean, Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, University of Toronto.

“Acting in Bedside Manners gave me such a unique insight into the dynamics between doctors and nurses and the various struggles and pressures that each face. As a nursing student, I am looking forward to learning the skills that will help foster greater collaboration and communication with those I will encounter in my career.” - Megan Lintz Nursing Student Mills College, Oakland. California.

“The interactive play Bedside Manners provides a unique and gripping teaching opportunity for use in medical and nursing education at any trainee/practitioner level.  Focusing on the causes and consequences of ineffective communication and unprofessional behaviors between nurses and physicians, the play is a superb trigger for thought, discussion, inter-professional interchange, and creative problem-solving.  Because all of its scenes are drawn from actual events and interactions across a range of clinical settings, they cannot be dismissed in “that-would-never-happen” defensiveness; rather they provoke a state of engagement and intensity of feeling that drives discussion and re-scripting.  Used as an onstage Reading with either professional actors or volunteer audience members, its adaptable format makes Bedside Manners accessible in a number of teaching venues.” - Bonnie B. O’Connor, PhD. Associate Professor, Pediatrics. Assistant Director, Pediatric Residency. Brown Medical School/Hasbro Children’s Hospital

“In an era when teamwork is the mantra of patient safety, the play Bedside Manners can help jump- start a long needed conversation about how doctors and nurses can collaborate rather than compete at the bedside.  As a professor I have used the play “Bedside Manners” in my classes and it has certainly been an effective teaching tool that helps nurses think about how they can enhance teamwork and patient safety. As a teaching tool, the play creates an opportunity for honest and informative dialogue with students across the healthcare disciplines.  The perspectives of nurse, physician, supervisor and family member are dramatized accurately and honestly.  My students relished the opportunity to discuss issues of communication in high pressure and highly emotionally charged situations.” - Kate McPhaul, PhD, MPH, RN, Assistant Professor. Work and Health Research Center. University of Maryland School of Nursing

“Lisa Hayes’ and Suzanne Gordon’s Bedside Manners is a powerful meditation on doctor-nurse communication which, as the play so movingly illustrates, must improve for the sake of patient safety (as if our own humanity weren’t reason enough). No patient or health care professional could be unmoved by seeing it. Bedside Manners’ unswerving and provocative — yet balanced — look at the gnawing professional standoff in which so many doctors and nurses find themselves could be just the medicine needed to help heal it.” - Timothy McCall, MD. Internist and Author of Examining Your Doctor

“I just finished reading Bedside Manners; that one made me want to cry. You could pick almost any section of the play and use it as a prompt for a final exam in my course on communication. The recurring themes - stress, misunderstanding, aggressiveness and cynicism as a cover for loneliness and fear and exhaustion, despair, the terrible burden of responsibility…” - Ernest Baumgarten, M.D. Associate Professor in the Graduate Counseling Program at Saint Mary’s College, Moraga, CA

“Healthcare professionals need to be able to communicate effectively with all team members in the health care workforce. The play “Bedside Manners” by Suzanne Gordon and Lisa Hayes, is told as seen through the eyes of long time nurse Leah Jones, who is now a cancer patient. The play, with it’s many realistic situations, clearly shows the effects of different forms of good communication and poor communication between nurses, nurse and doctor, doctor and nurse and doctor/nurse and patient. Watching this play my students reported having achieved a better understanding of how poor communication and good communication can make a difference in the quality and safety of patient care. They also reported gaining a better awareness and understanding of the barriers that can cause breakdowns in communication. This play is a wonderful way to present the positive and negative consequences of good and bad communication to students  beginning their careers. I highly recommend it for all students planning a career in healthcare!” - Jo Scullion. Health Professions Program Coordinator, Mills College.

“Having the opportunity to participate in a performance of Bedside Manners at our Nursing Leadership Conference at Mills College was truly wonderful.  It is a compelling script, perfect for raising awareness of “real life” challenges and encouraging important discussion. Thank you so much.” -Jess Miller, Director Services for Students with Disabilities Mills College.