How roleplaying develops empathy
Roleplay’s just a bit of fun, isn’t it? Or is it? Here’s how it can deepen empathy, produce better results and save lives.
Jean-Martin Charcout sounds like quite a cool guy to me. Certainly one who had creative teaching skills before creative teaching skills became a thing. Charcout was a 19th century doctor and used to bring his medical students on stage with him whilst he lectured, letting them ‘experience’ the many forms neurological disease could take.
Fast forward a couple of centuries to 2015 and mime-based role playing training was introduced by Emmanuel Rose, consulting neurologist and professor of Neurology at Sorbonne University.
Two and a half years after the neurological rotation, medical students who’d experienced Rose’s mime programme recalled neurological signs and symptoms better and scored higher on empathy as well as being more comfortable with the signs of patients' conditions than students who’d only received training based on standard lectures and textbooks.
I think there’s 3 takeaways from this:
Don’t dismiss or underestimate roleplaying in learning new communication skills.
There’s real power in ‘being’ someone else - even if for 5 minutes.
If you’re ever a patient in a neurology ward, and there’s a doctor in front of you - what kind of training would you like her to have had?