Medical Error and Anesthesiology: Using Theater to Teach Bioethics and Patient Safety in Medical Education
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Publication Date
10-11-2025
Abstract
Introduction: There has been a call for increasing humanities in medical education over the last 10 years—programs such as The Fundamental Role of the Arts and Humanities in Medical Education (FRAHME) exemplifies the AAMC’s dedication to this initiative. This study uses theater performances of medical error in anesthesiology cases to teach medical ethics and humanism to first-year medical students. This promotes understanding of the human elements of making mistakes and the importance of reckoning with their impacts on self and others. This study compares two groups who received similar training but one group was exposed to theater performance of a physician who had made an error and is undergoing deposition, while the other was exposed to recorded interviews with physicians who had made an error. Staged performances of lived experiences are useful in revealing the complexities of these medical ethics cases and giving voice to perspectives outside of the physician alone.
Methods: Participants are first year medical students at a medical school in the Midwest. All students participated in a class session titled, “To Err is Human: Failure and Humility.” They subsequently recorded a video response on the Bongo platform to an ethics case involving error that prolonged a cardiac anesthesiology case. Both cohorts of students received a didactic presentation on medical error. Additionally, the theater cohort received a reenactment from Deborah Salem Smith’s play Love Alone detailing the malpractice lawsuit of an anesthesiologist following complications of a routine procedure. With IRB approval, student responses from both cohorts were transcribed and narratively coded by two blinded coders who crosschecked each response to ensure inter-coder reliability. Coders then raised the codes to categories and conducted a comparative thematic analysis across the two groups.
Results: Data analysis is currently in-process. Early results indicate that out of the 250 student respondents, 202 students (81%) stated they would disclose the medical error to the patient/family, 16 students (6%) stated they would not disclose the medical error, and 32 students (13%) stated they would maybe disclose the medical error to the patient/family. Of note, the “maybe” group often cites that their decision to disclose relies on case-specific patient outcomes. In response to ways to prevent this error, students propose system changes such as changing medication vial color and spatially separating medications, as well as provider-centered interventions such as double-checking medication with a nurse and adding checklists in the operating room. When considering error impacts on patients, 4 students (2%) mentioned concern regarding the financial burden due to extra anesthesia administered. Lastly, 43 students (17%) mentioned verbatim feeling “guilty” if they were to have made this error. We anticipate medical students who have completed the theater session to be more attentive to patient and family emotions when disclosing medical error compared to their counterparts. Additionally, we expect the theater group to be more descriptive in how they disclose the error to patients and explaining how disclosure affects trust within the doctor-patient relationship.
Conclusion: Overall, this study highlights the importance of utilizing theater as a method of teaching bioethics to medical students. Medical education benefits from integrating liberal arts into the classroom in order to encourage creativity and expression of emotion that further develops the skill set of future physicians. This study gives us information that is useful for tailoring future sessions to target different interpersonal skills for medical students while also creating a platform for other interdisciplinary teaching methods to be implemented.
Recommended Citation
Ayers J, Ayers J, Wasserman J. Medical error and anesthesiology: using theater to teach bioethics and patient safety in medical education. Presented at: American Society of Anesthesiologists, The Anesthesiology Annual Meeting; 2025 Oct 11; San Antonio, TX. Available from:https://www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/21028/presentation/7755
Comments
American Society of Anesthesiologists, The Anesthesiology Annual Meeting, October 10-14, 2025, San Antonio, TX