Co-Creating Care: Lessons from the Stage (EP:44)
With Marco Antonio de Carvalho Filho, MD, PHD
If medical education is meant to prepare people for the emotional realities of patient care, what might change if we taught students not only to do the work, but to fully inhabit the person they are becoming while doing it? Join host Stacy Craft, and guest Professor Dr. Carvalho Filho, as we explore an unexpected but deeply powerful intersection: the meeting of theater and medical education. Dr. Marco shares how the traditions of the stage, presence, imagination, emotional awareness, and co-creation, offer transformative possibilities for how we train future clinicians. Through stories of working with actors, facilitating embodied learning, and creating safe spaces for vulnerability, he reveals how theater can move education beyond checklists and simulations into something far more human.
We discuss why presence matters more than prescribed communication “skills,” how students can reclaim their identities while learning to care for others, and why cultivating joy, curiosity, and emotional resilience may be essential to the health of both clinicians and the profession itself. From co-constructed simulations to long-form theatrical workshops, this episode invites us to rethink what meaningful learning and meaningful care can look like.
Questions? Feedback? Ideas? Contact us at edufi@mayo.edu
Audio Editing: Celina Bertoncini
Additional Resources:
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Medical Education Empowered by Theater (MEET)
Batista, M. P., & Rios, I. C. (2020). Medical education empowered by theater: The MEET model. Academic Medicine, 95(4), 578–583. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32134785/ -
Curtis, F., Lamont, Z., & Waldman, O. (2024). Zoom improv is accessible and enhances medical student empathy: A randomized controlled study. BMC Medical Education, 24, Article 6017. https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-024-06017-6
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Vigone, G., et al. (2025). Medicine at theatre: A tool for well-being and health-care education. BMC Medical Education, 25, Article 6793. https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/counter/pdf/10.1186/s12909-025-06793-9.pdf
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Sato, B., & Pinho, V. (2020). Forum theatre as a teaching strategy in health care education. BMC Medical Education, 20, Article 1965. https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-020-1965-4
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Rzepka, M., & Jagielski, P. (2025). Investigating the influence of role-playing on empathy and perspective-taking in medical learners. Perspectives on Medical Education, 14(1). https://pmejournal.org/en/articles/10.5334/pme.1482
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Song, H. J., & Lee, S. (2025). Could empathy be taught? A systematic review of empathy training in medical education. Journal of Medical Systems, 49, Article 2144. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10916-025-02144-9
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Thompson, R., & Vyas, K. (2024). The effectiveness of immersive virtual reality in teaching empathy to health-care students. Virtual Reality, 28, 1019–1032. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10055-024-01019-7
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Shapiro, J., Morrison, E., & Boker, J. (2011). Using medical humanities to teach empathy to medical students: A scoping review. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 26(8), 981–987. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21268921/
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