Thinking like a nurse: The pedagogical power of process drama

Kerry Reid-Searl,Margaret Mcallister,Christine Sinclair

doi:10.1386/jaah.5.3.319_1

Kerry Reid-Searl, Margaret Mcallister + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1386/jaah.5.3.319_1

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Abstract

Abstract We aim to empower nursing students to understand that their actions can positively contribute to health care, and to develop professionals who humanize the health workforce. We have designed simulation learning experiences using process drama, Mask-Ed (KRS Simulation). Participants are engaged in a series of structured improvisations emphasizing collaborative discovery and idea development. With no external audience, educator and students are simultaneously actors, directors, technicians and audience. The process builds skills of engagement, empathy and problem solving. Action periods are followed by reflection periods, and participants link the fictional world of the drama and their everyday reality. Educators carefully design and act as masked characters, using realistic props to simulate a person with a health care need whose life story promotes student engagement with issues exacerbating negative health outcomes. Mask-Ed builds clinical skills while sensitizing students to concepts such as the body in nursing and how to think like a nurse.

Highlights

A group of first-year nursing students await the beginning of their class – an introduction to clinical practice
Clinical practice is constantly changing with developments in health technology, increasing consumer expectations and the spread of health care beyond hospital walls (McCance et al 2013)
A series of protocols and strategies similar to those introduced by the teacher before and during the Teacher in Role (TiR) session is designed to immerse students in the fictional frame established by the teacher

Summary

Introduction

A group of first-year nursing students await the beginning of their class – an introduction to clinical practice. Their nursing educator arrives and begins the class, but after an introduction she leaves and returns but not in the manner that they expect, rather in role as a kind and elderly gentleman named Cyril. A further challenge is how to value the two worlds that students of nursing occupy: the education space where they can be learners, free to play with ideas, to make mistakes and to grow; and the clinical space where they need to be safe, composed and efficient, as well as good communicators (Sculty 2011). Attempting to teach everything a student might need to know is futile, to plant knowledge seeds that will help students to flourish is vital (Clonan et al 2004)

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