Common Ground: Frameworks for Teaching Improvisational Ability in Medical Education.

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Improvisational Theater
• Applied Improvisation

Background:

• Medical practice involves inherent unpredictability, requiring clinicians to respond skillfully to uncertainty.
• Medical educators increasingly use improvisational theater training methods, termed "medical improv," to teach skills like communication and professionalism.
• Existing descriptions of medical improv curricula lack consistency, hindering its implementation and research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address the lack of consistency in medical improv curricula by presenting two unifying conceptual frameworks.
• To simplify terminology and clarify the distinction between skills and principles in medical improv.
• To organize the diverse skills of improvisation into manageable categories for educational purposes.

Main Methods:

• Synthesized curricular elements from improvisational theater and applied improvisation.
• Developed two conceptual frameworks: core curricular components (skills, principles, exercises) and core skill groups (attunement, affirmation, advancement).
• Organized a wide range of improv skills into three core skill groups.

Main Results:

• The curricular component framework simplifies terminology and clarifies the distinction between skills and principles.
• The skill group framework categorizes diverse improv skills into attunement, affirmation, and advancement.
• The frameworks provide a simple, encompassing structure for medical improv concepts.

Conclusions:

• The proposed frameworks enhance understanding of medical improv scope and depth for educators and learners.
• Medical improv can efficiently meet Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) objectives for communication skills.
• Improv exercises offer an experiential learning modality to supplement traditional medical education and promote resilience.