Forum theatre for training residents to be allies

Residents are commonly targets and bystanders of workplace discrimination, yet little is known about how best to train residents to manage these incidents. We sought to train residents to respond effectively to being a target or bystander of discrimination.

We used a novel, 75-min theatrical role-playing intervention called Theatre for Healthcare Equity (T.H.E.) to teach 71 internal medicine residents between December 2017 and February 2018. In T.H.E. residents took turns acting as either a 'resident' target or a 'student' bystander in a simulated scenario of discrimination. A facilitator led follow-up discussions including group reflection and development of learning scripts to help with difficult situations. A post-graduation survey was sent in November 2021 to assess residents' retention of knowledge, attitudes and potential application in practice.

T.H.E. was well received by residents, though survey response rates were low. All respondents to a post-session survey reported having acquired knowledge and skills to help them respond to incidents of bias and discrimination. Most respondents to the post-graduation survey nearly 4 years later remembered T.H.E.; seven wrote reflective narrative responses indicating that T.H.E. had raised awareness of these issues, empowered them to speak up on behalf of colleagues and validated their emotional reactions to hurtful speech from patients. We describe an incident in which a former resident attributed his ability to serve as an effective bystander ally to participating in T.H.E. years earlier.

T.H.E. was an efficient, well-received intervention that some of our residents found to have been helpful years later. We continue to use T.H.E. as the basis for periodic ongoing allyship training for residents and teaching faculty to improve the inclusiveness of our clinical learning environment.