Abstract Manager

Facilitated and Dedicated Poster

LP9 - 01

no

General Call (Workshop, Oral Presentation, Poster Presentation)

Oral

Education Research

Graduate Student

yes

Applied Theatre within Undergraduate Medical Education: A Scoping Review

Applied theatre has been integrated within various undergraduate medical education programs within North America to improve students' clinical skills and empathetic behaviours in future physicians. For the purposes of this project, we are defining applied theatre as the use of drama skills within educational practice. Currently, several medical schools across Canada and the United States incorporate a variation of applied theatre within their curriculums. However, there is no compilation of current publications regarding applied theatre and undergraduate medical education; this information would be valuable to further understand the benefits of the intersections of drama and health education. This project offers a scoping review of the current available literature in order to gain a further understanding of applied theatre initiatives and outcomes within undergraduate medical education particularly in relation to the CanMEDS framework.

Twelve publications were obtained from online databases including: Pubmed, OVID, Web of Science, and ERIC; a specific keyword search was employed: "medical education" and "theatre" (or applied drama or theater), and "North America"(Canada and the USA), and "drama", and "medical students." The articles were critically appraised by the type of applied theatre activities, feedback, future applications of applied theatre initiatives, and qualitative and quantitative results from the studies through thematic analysis.

The current literature demonstrates the positive benefits of incorporating applied theatre within undergraduate medical education based on a variety of applied theatre initiatives. Thematic analysis demonstrated the positive benefits of applied drama with improving undergraduate medical students' communication skills, education, and personal development. The results demonstrated how applied theatre activities overlap with the CanMEDS framework.

The results highlighted the diversity and importance of applied theatre initiatives within medical education and how it should be further incorporated in curricula.

Undergraduate Medical Education

Applied Theatre

Curriculum Development

Undergraduate

Curriculum

Undergraduate

Physician & Medical Student Health and Well-being

Professionalism

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes