Hang on to your headphones for an extraordinary journey with Dr. Michael Smith, a healthcare specialist and educator at the University of Nebraska. Unwrapping a Christmas gift of improv lessons, he found an unexpected treasure - a tool to foster communication, meaningful engagement and safety within healthcare teams! Dr. Smedt talks us through how he skillfully integrated these principles into faculty development, turning ordinary workshops into extraordinary sessions of learning and connectivity.
Venture into the second part of our discussion where the magic of 'yes, and' concept is unveiled. Uncover the potential of this technique in relationship building, understanding power dynamics and promoting effective listening. Learn from Dr. Smedt, as he shares invaluable advice on practicing active listening in your daily life. Want to apply these principles in your field? He recommends the Applied Improv Network as an excellent resource. So, get ready for an enlightening deep-dive into improv in healthcare with Dr. Smedt, it's more than just fun and games!
Innovative SimSolutions.
Your turnkey solution provider for medical simulation programs, sim centers & faculty design.
Hang on to your headphones for an extraordinary journey with Dr. Michael Smith, a healthcare specialist and educator at the University of Nebraska. Unwrapping a Christmas gift of improv lessons, he found an unexpected treasure - a tool to foster communication, meaningful engagement and safety within healthcare teams! Dr. Smedt talks us through how he skillfully integrated these principles into faculty development, turning ordinary workshops into extraordinary sessions of learning and connectivity.
Venture into the second part of our discussion where the magic of 'yes, and' concept is unveiled. Uncover the potential of this technique in relationship building, understanding power dynamics and promoting effective listening. Learn from Dr. Smedt, as he shares invaluable advice on practicing active listening in your daily life. Want to apply these principles in your field? He recommends the Applied Improv Network as an excellent resource. So, get ready for an enlightening deep-dive into improv in healthcare with Dr. Smedt, it's more than just fun and games!
Innovative SimSolutions.
Your turnkey solution provider for medical simulation programs, sim centers & faculty design.
The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of anyone at Innovative Sim Solutions or our sponsors. Thanks to the Think Tank Project LLC for sponsoring this week's episode.
Disclaimer/ The Think Tank Project Ad/ Show Intro:The Think Tank Project is a change agent, pattern disruptor and translator that was formed to explore how to implement tactics and strategies to increase and improve meaningful engagement in any team. Data has shown that increased synergy of your team improves safety and productivity. By connecting at that level, your team gains a competitive edge by unlocking human potential. Billy Martin offers keynotes and presentations as informational sessions to get your team to think outside the box. Discover what you're missing by contacting the Think Tank Project today. Welcome to the Sim Cafe, a podcast produced by the team at Innovative Sim Solutions, edited by Shelley Hauser. Join our host, Deb Tauber, and co-host Jared Jeffries as they sit down with subject matter experts from across the globe to reimagine clinical education and the use of simulation. So pour yourself a cup of relaxation, sit back, tune in and learn something new from the Sim Cafe.
Den Tauber:Welcome to another episode of the Sim Cafe. Thank you for joining us, and today we have two very special guests. Unfortunately, Jerrod is out on holiday with his family, the Jeffries family, and so I had asked a dear friend, Ferooz Sekandarpoor if he would be willing to be the co-host today. So, without further ado, or how, how are you doing today? Welcome and thank you for joining me.
Ferooz Sekandarpoor:Thank you very much, Deb, and hello to all of our listeners. It's an honor to be a co-host and hopefully I can fill Jared's shoes that he left. So this is the first time I'm co-hosting. However, the first time I'm asking questions. So I'm very, very happy to be here, but I'm very excited to introduce our today's guest.
Ferooz Sekandarpoor:So I'll leave it a still a surprise, but he was a keynote speaker at SimGhost 2023 in August at the University of Nebraska. So we, after listening to his lecture, we learned so much about the topic improv and so both of us decided to send an invitation to him and invite him to The SimCafe and to introduce him to the rest of our simulation community. So he's a specialist at the University of Nebraska. Basically, he was giving an improv lessons as a gift for, I think, christmas gift, and then he began to incorporate the improv skills and into being a physician and educator and he used all of those skills and created workshops to practice these skills and nowadays he's teaching a lot of healthcare workers around the country. So I would like to welcome Dr Michael Smith. Welcome, Dr.
Mike Smith:Michael, thanks so much yeah.
Ferooz Sekandarpoor:So are you Dr Smith or Mike or Michael?
Mike Smith:Yeah, I respond to all of them. Most people do call me Mike, though, so Okay, Thank you very much.
Den Tauber:Mike for being here. Thanks, Mike. I'm going to start out with the first question, which is a little different. Can you walk us through how you first got introduced to improv and what sparked your interest in integrating it into your professional life as a healthcare provider and educator?
Mike Smith:Yeah, that's a very common question that I get a lot from people about. I don't see the connection between these two and, truth be told, I did not initially either. Like Ferooz said in the intro, I had no theater experience prior to getting level one lessons as a Christmas gift from my wife. It wasn't something I asked for or something that I'd been pining to do and just never got around to do it. It was truly out of the blue and I started doing it. I would do it once a week and I didn't really tell anyone either. It was kind of sneaking away, get out of the house and have fun.
Mike Smith:And I was actually at a conference in Toronto and I told one of my mentors that I was taking improv classes and he goes oh I'm sure that helps you as an academic hospitalist, and I was like, yeah, definitely, but inside I had no idea what he was talking about.
Mike Smith:And so we had a discussion there and, sure enough, I would have a break in the improv class and I would feel like I forgot everything at the next improv class.
Mike Smith:And so what I did was I tried to incorporate the skills that we were using in improv and use those in my job, either as an educator or connecting with patients. And so as I was doing that, the next division meeting, they announced the most improved patient satisfaction scores over that period of time and I was the most improved. And so I was so happy with myself and like, look at that, that's pretty cool that these improv skills had some tangible marker of success. And then as I was walking out of the meeting, I was like, oh, I thought I was already really good at these skills and I thought it was something that I excelled at to begin with. And so these skills that I was working on, that I was kind of forced to practice at improv, were kind of in my blind spot, or were pushed to my blind spot clinically, and so it helped me kind of recognize it. And then from there I just kind of kept wedging it into my career.
Ferooz Sekandarpoor:That's fantastic. So creating these into like these skills that you learned was for faculty development is a significant endeavor, so can you walk us through the process of how you implemented all of these skills?
Mike Smith:Yeah. So I was at a peer mentoring session. I was starting to tell people that I did improv. Then I said I'd like to incorporate this into my teaching in a more formal way. I was already doing it with teams that I was working with and one of my colleagues said you should talk to the head of faculty development. And they put us in contact and I spoke to her and she was like we're actually doing a workshop in two weeks on improving faculty presentation skills.
Mike Smith:Keep in mind, at the time I was a very, very bad public speaker, or I was very fearful of it the least. And so she was like would you like to use your improv skills to help towards this end? And one of the big rules of improv is say yes. And so my hands were kind of tied. I had to be like yes, I will happily help with this public speaking course.
Mike Smith:And I got through that and I started talking to the head of faculty development, who I worked with for that, and said I have five big areas where improv has helped me as a physician.
Mike Smith:It's helped improve my life and my teaching and the way I kind of move about the hospital, and so we set five workshops for the fall of 2018 and in the small script it did mention we'd be using improv theater principles, but those workshops sold out and so I didn't know who all would come, but it ended up being some clinical and some nonclinical people and then from there I started developing some workshops for those attendees.
Mike Smith:They said could you do this workshop for my group on campus and felt like it was a success. So the next year I in the marketing we did label it as improv workshops and much less of a response from that one. So it's clear there's a hunger for developing these skills and improving these skills. But I think people do get a little nervous when they hear improv or like am I going to have to perform and just kind of Get too far outside of my comfort zone? It's. It sparked a ton of interesting conversations across campus about can you use this to help with this area and Just kind of looking for new ways to explore the benefits, because I do think it provides a fun opportunity To get it difficult to practice skills.
Ferooz Sekandarpoor:I Can really relate to that, because I'm the although I'm an extrovert, but when it comes to, if I see the word improv and that I needed to go to and do some things that as out of my comfort zone, I am very hesitant of doing that. So I could see that Citation and my next question would have been the follow-up question to this would have been that when you had even the name, you called it Communication workshop, not improv. When you engaged these Audience, did you see any hesitation from a doctor's and then physicians to just, like you know, come in and do some of those Exercises and some of those contents that you develop and they need to participate. How was the participation during the class?
Mike Smith:Yeah, there's oftentimes a ton of hesitation, and I'm very aware of that, and also Early on when I was developing and I was talking to other people who had either attended improv workshop or had some connection to it, and A lot of the times the feedback was it was fun, we had a good time, but I don't understand why we did it. And so those kind of two principles Like understanding that people are going to have some uncertainty when they come in and making sure that they feel comfortable Right from the outset before asking them to do something to outside their comfort zone, and then making sure that it's relevant to their job those are two of the absolute essential principles that I have to have for a session. The activities generally when I do a two-hour workshop Increased in the level of Theatriness and so by the time you are doing that performance, usually the group is very comfortable with each other and Feels comfortable taking those risks and it's more of a fun experience.
Ferooz Sekandarpoor:I just want to also ask to see when you are approached to create these workshops. Do you do any assessment of their needs first, or do you have that or you have a standard sort of approach to all of these workshops?
Mike Smith:So, yeah, I'll talk to whoever the lead is or whoever I'm speaking with and say what are you looking to accomplish? What's your understanding of what improv can offer? Because some people are looking for just a fun experience for their team together, and so I have some set workshops that I've been doing with faculty development here for the last five, six years that I kind of pull from. But it's very important that it connects with the audience that's there and they recognize that we're here to work on listening or growth, mindset or body language.
Den Tauber:And what are some of the specific things that you teach in those, like a couple, you know a few lessons that that we can take home?
Mike Smith:Yeah, the biggest kind of introduction to improv is the idea of yes, and that's the most important thing, and that's saying yes to the person you're communicating with. It's not necessarily agreeing with them. It's saying yes, that I want to try to understand you, and then the and portion I'm going to add something to that and then build from there, and so you build a reality together. That's covered in the, in an introductory workshop and other things. Kind of build from there, like listening is practicing. How do I really try to understand and say yes to their reality?
Den Tauber:I love that because it's it disarms the learner when you say yes and then you say and you want to give them your perspective and how you see the world, how you see the situation. So yes, and we put that in the show notes.
Mike Smith:Yeah, if you walk away with nothing else. The concept of yes and is my hope that everyone walks away with, because it's just two simple words, but to me it's much more of a worldview, like saying yes to what's in front of me. I'm going to see the world as it is, not how I hope it to be, and and I'm going to impart some action or my thoughts onto it. And so it's me. It's a very powerful concept that it's come to affect everything I do and how I see every event in my life.
Ferooz Sekandarpoor:I recall, I think now that when you said, and, and from the SimGhost keynote talk, I think that was quite interesting, that especially mage, practicing all of those that can make you a good listener so somebody tells you, oh, I've got a bad day, and say, yes, but I had a bad day as well, you know, then did not listening and ignoring that Now I just really recall and I think you give us an exercise, maybe later you can do a little bit of that so that some of our listeners that may listen while they're driving or at home they can practice this along along the way. But now it just came back to me of listening parts, so it was quite interesting. Yeah, so that it often happens, especially my. I remember with my kids so when they say that today I just talked to John about this and he said, yes, but did you clean your room? You?
Ferooz Sekandarpoor:know, like or like that and said it never listens to me and walks away. And then I just now realize that after you talk that oh really I don't listen, actually because I just shut him down right there and I just ask him to go and clean his room.
Den Tauber:So yeah, it's very interesting.
Mike Smith:I think a lot of people do have that moment of recalling when they may not have done that, and I was developing the workshop for listening like the back in 2018. And I was kind of going through things, because when you're on an improv stage, you have to actively, deeply listen, because you have no idea what you're seeing, partner, what ideas in their head, and so you're paying very close attention, actively listening and keeping in mind your own opinion. And so improv has forced me to become a better listener, and when I was arranging the workshop for listening, I actually went and apologized to my wife because I was like these are, I do all the things you're not supposed to do in my everyday life, whereas on stage I'm a pretty good listener and that probably doesn't help you at all, and so it's made me a much better, active listener in my day to day life.
Ferooz Sekandarpoor:It just reminds me of us as well. So we are sometimes we're better educated at the work than actually real life, like you know, because there's some principles that we I think those are only we limit that to our work and but when it comes to our overall life, we do not follow that, like you know, like listening is one of them, and you listen to your boss because he's your boss. The whole time you have to pay attention, but the minute you are not at work and when it comes to your family, friends, you may not not that engaged in listening. So I think that's great way of just looking at it as well. That's fantastic. Thank you for sharing.
Den Tauber:Now, mike, how do you deal with a power, a power dynamic, where one individual may be coming off in a own approachable manner?
Mike Smith:like a colleague. Yes, I guess I would approach it with trying to understand their reality, and so if they're coming across in that manner, I can say, yes, they see the world in that way and so they're acting rationally because of the way that they see the world. It's not like they're mean or they're that a bad person. They're acting in the best way that they can, and so I am going to accept that. I may not agree with it, but I'm going to accept that and I'm going to assume that's true for them. And how do I add something that kind of puts a little my spin on that belief?
Mike Smith:When you do perform improv, the status ends up being a communicator, and so people will communicate their status when they come out on stage to kind of give you an idea, and so you become aware of reading other people's status, how they perceive themselves as well as how do you Put your status out to the world? And is it what you intend? And so we work on that in our body language workshop. A lot is Assessing status, and are we putting out the status that we want out into the world? Is it communicating what we think it is? Because a lot of times our body language is Just left to whatever it is. It's not intentionally thought of, but we do an exercise where we mimic the person before us body language and then pass that message along just with our body, and so it's a way of saying yes, and with our just our body language, and so that's a Fun way to explore that idea of are we communicating what we think with our body language?
Ferooz Sekandarpoor:Mike, I think overall your workshops are like it is a simulation, basically you simulate that environment. Have you done anything in the simulation lab with improv, like incorporated them Technologies and like simulators into your improv, or is just purely you've done it all at the like a workshop, just with staff and faculties and without any uses of technology other than PowerPoint and videos?
Mike Smith:Yeah, I've not. That's always kind of been in the back of my head because I think with increasing technology and understanding language and Interpreting a bit more, I think that is an opportunity to understand people's responses and the various inputs. What kind of response does it get? And there's all sorts like using empathetic words in responses to things, and so I think there is potential in the future of combining them with technology.
Ferooz Sekandarpoor:There's a lot of possibilities because I know there's a lot of scenarios are out there. So, in term of, like you know, talking, passing difficult news to the family member and I do we do have those sort of Simulation. I'm sure most of institutions does that. However, to incorporate some of these improv, just you know, in term of active listening and Empathies, and some of those could be just really great compliment to those, those scenarios. I think so, now that I know the more I know about improv and their roles and impact of it, would be great.
Mike Smith:Yeah, I think the educational theory behind improv is very similar to the educational theory behind a lot of the simulation, and that's kind of how this also developed is I was reading about how to become a better educator and as I was starting to take those improv classes, and so they talked about the ways to get better, and simulation is a core component of that, and so this Improv is kind of my version of it and I think the the worlds would combine quite nicely, I think.
Ferooz Sekandarpoor:Yeah, great, well, I've got, we've got a few other questions. So we are so excited I think we want to talk our. So can we do Just a quick improv of like at least active listening or something like that, so that we can at and Try all of us and including our listeners?
Mike Smith:Yeah, one of the first exercises we do is just a yes and circle and so that's all, say a location. Then we want to go myself, deb, then Frouze. Then back to me, deb will say yes, we're at that location, and then add a detail about that location. And then, frouze, you'll say yes to that detail and add another detail about that location, and then I'll say yes about that detail, and so, and then we'll go around twice and then I'll add the last detail about it.
Ferooz Sekandarpoor:That's great. Okay, well go ahead, Deb.
Mike Smith:So I'll say we are at a beach.
Den Tauber:Yes, and it is a sunny, beautiful day.
Ferooz Sekandarpoor:Yes, and also the wind is blowing and the waves are coming strong.
Mike Smith:Yes, the waves are coming strong and I'm holding my boogie board in my hand wondering if I should go in.
Den Tauber:Yes, and I see a sign that says caution, be careful and safe.
Ferooz Sekandarpoor:Yes, because there's no lifeguard on duties today, so you better be careful.
Mike Smith:Yes, and so I put the boogie board on the sand and I take a nap.
Den Tauber:That's, that's the end of our scene, our beach day. That was fun.
Mike Smith:Yeah, most people know of whose lines. In any way. That's short form improv and so a lot, of, a lot of the things that we do in a workshop take the form of short form improv games, like we just did. Long form improv is you make a whole production with characters and plot and emotion and that can last 20 to 50 minutes, and so a lot of times the short form improv games are good at kind of Pinpointing specific skills that build to some of the more longer, longer form exercises.
Ferooz Sekandarpoor:So in this exercise that we did what was the? The main focus of this conversation was mostly towards like listening.
Mike Smith:Yeah, and so I'm not planning what I'm going to say until I hear what you said.
Ferooz Sekandarpoor:Great, okay, so that's active listening.
Mike Smith:And also I'm contributing. Active listening is being a part of the scene, it's not just passively hearing the words that are coming to you. If I would have said that I went into the ocean anyway, that would have been kind of me saying my idea for this scene was me to go boogie boarding. But both your comments kind of made it sound like the ocean was not. Your reality was that ocean was not to be swimmed in, there's no lifeguard, and so it would not make sense for me to say now I'm just going to go in the ocean. It was we built that together.
Ferooz Sekandarpoor:Nice yeah, active engagement, active listening and also contributing to that conversation and participating, that's really good, thank you. Just one last question for me would be what advice would you offer to another healthcare professional that wanted to utilize some of the improv in their practice? What advice that would be?
Mike Smith:The easiest would be to just start practicing yes and in your day to day life and work life and notice the changes that occur in the conversations.
Mike Smith:I've done workshops with medical students and they so they have no medical understanding because this workshop is on their first day of medical school and they write essays and say I used it, and it turned a conversation that was anticipating being difficult or kind of with conflict infused, and it actually made it a productive conversation and I actually noticed the person I was speaking to listening more to me because I acknowledged their reality. So the easiest and best thing would be to practice using yes. And for the people who would like to really get in, I can't recommend taking an improv class enough. It's with a bunch of people who are taught to say yes and to each other. And another improv rule is make your partner look like a million bucks, and so everyone is geared towards making you looking like a million bucks, and so the improv theaters and improv areas do tend to be supportive environments, and so it may seem kind of scary at first, but once you get in there it's fun and you meet an eclectic and supportive group of people.
Den Tauber:Yeah, I've always wanted to take a course and I think maybe your words of wisdom have a left to start looking for one.
Mike Smith:Yeah it, most cities have some improv class available, and so Omaha has two theaters that offer improv classes and a local community theater will occasionally have an improv class available, and so they're out there and seek them out, or give a gift to someone in your life who you want to communicate better, as what happened to me.
Den Tauber:So is it. Is it why your wife gave you the gift?
Mike Smith:Yeah, no, I don't know she. It was not expressly like you need to communicate better. It was here's a fun activity for you to do. I went into it kind of heavily, and so there's a period where she kind of regretted giving me the improv lessons, but then I became a better communicator and so it's in result is yeah.
Ferooz Sekandarpoor:I'm actually in Vancouver, Canada, so I'm in British Columbia. So I look at I will Google later as well to see if there's any of the classes so that I can actually try and use anything online, any resources online that people could just look at as well.
Mike Smith:Yeah, there are a number of people who put out content related to improv. There's also the applied improv network, and they had their worldwide conference in Vancouver just this past summer, and so there's a whole host of people who take these improv principles and apply them to various fields like business, healthcare, leadership, and so the applied improv network has a bunch of content that is geared towards how do you take these improv principles and practice them in your own life.
Ferooz Sekandarpoor:Yeah, that's, that's great, thank you. We will put that also in the show notes. And also you are presenting in many places that right, so some of us want to know as well earlier before we start recording. I think you mentioned that you're you scheduled to give number of lectures and also a TED talk.
Mike Smith:Yeah, yeah. So I'll be in University of North Carolina, blue Ridge, at the beginning of October. I'll be at Des Moines University in the middle of October and then presenting at Midwest Society of General Internal Medicine, also in the middle of October. And then, yeah, the next Omaha talk is November 18 here in Omaha, and so I'm very excited for that. And yet, in spite of the talk being about improv, my coaches and the organizers said I do have to plan my talk. I can't just make it up on the spot.
Ferooz Sekandarpoor:That's right. Well, you're a skill that coming up with a lot of improv wish most of us and we, but I'm so glad that we had this discussion with you today.
Den Tauber:I'm going to ask you a little bit about being part of improv teams. Like dad jokes and biscuits must be exhilarating. Can you tell us a little bit more about them?
Mike Smith:Yeah, so the team Dad Jokes was when I started taking classes.
Mike Smith:You kind of go through with a group of people, and so that started as the group of people that I started taking level one classes with, and some of them have moved away and we have new people in there, and so Dad Jokes was my original team.
Mike Smith:And then our theater has house teams where you try out and you make a team and you go on a six month run of monthly shows, and so Biscuits was that for a while and then we continued on as a team together after, because, as you said, it is exhilarating. I still will have a show that is a lemon, where I feel very bad for myself and the audience and the people who had to watch it. It's less frequent now but it's still in the cards, it's still on the menu, but there are shows that I've been a part of for both those teams where I walk away high on life and just amazed at how it came to be, because several people coming together to tell a story that never could have happened without each individual's component and it was made up on the spot and only that one night and that one moment was it there, and so it's very fun.
Den Tauber:And when did you start? How long have you been doing this?
Mike Smith:I got it for Christmas in 2014.
Den Tauber:Okay, 2014. So you've been at this almost 10 years.
Mike Smith:Yeah, getting there Obviously the break with the pandemic, but we did shows online occasionally and kind of limped through there, and so check out an improv theater.
Ferooz Sekandarpoor:Yeah, so thank you very much, mike. It was a great, great talk and I hope our listeners also get to check the improv and see if they can exercise and learn more about it and see if they can practice it in their work. Yeah, so any other question for Mike?
Den Tauber:No, this has been great. I really appreciate your time and what you're doing. I think it's really important, and it's very important in healthcare, that we take a minute and are mindful of how important our words and our body language are and can be. And yeah, thank you, Michael. Any questions for us or any closing thoughts for our listeners?
Mike Smith:No, this is great. I very much enjoyed talking with you and the SimGhost conference earlier this year was great and I enjoyed all the content that I saw and the people were very fun, and so that was great. I also have a website that is healthcareimprovcom. I should probably mention that when you're asking for resources, but I write down my thoughts about how improv, healthcare and education intersects on the websites and all of the social media outlets are hcareimprov. If anyone is interested in hearing more.
Den Tauber:Yeah, we'll put that in the show.
Mike Smith:It's improv or hcare. The website is healthcareimprov. com, and then the handles are hcareimprov.
Ferooz Sekandarpoor:Perfect. Thank you very much.
Den Tauber:Well, thank you very much and happy simulating.
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