A play about workplace relations among physicians, nurses, others who work in health care, and patients—and how their interaction affects the quality of patient care, for better or worse.
While many health care professionals lament the poor communication between doctors and nurses who jointly care for patients, the path to improve this remains unclear. In Bedside Manners, journalist, author, and visiting professor at the University School of Nursing Suzanne Gordon came up with a novel idea: use theater to tackle the intricacies of doctor-nurse relationships—where they succeed, where they fail, and where there are better solutions.
Suzanne Gordon is Visiting Professor at the University of Maryland School of Nursing and was program leader of the Robert Wood Johnson–funded Nurse Manager in Action Program. She is the author of Life Support and Nursing against the Odds, coauthor of Beyond the Checklist, Safety in Numbers and From Silence to Voice, editor of When Chicken Soup Isn’t Enough, and coeditor of First, Do Less Harm and The Complexities of Care, all from Cornell. Lisa Hayes is an actor, playwright, director, and educator. She has written the plays From the Mountains of Mourne to the Mines of Montana, The Sad Sacks are Back, and The Trailer Park Diaries. Scott Reeves is Director of the Center for Innovation in Interprofessional Healthcare Education at the University of California, San Francisco. He is the editor-in-chief of Journal of Interprofessional Care. Lucian L. Leape, MD, is an Adjunct Professor of Health Policy in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health.