By Will Gilson, Currier Times Staff///

The Curry College curriculum offers a variety of different courses you can take. One of the courses that is relatively new and unique to Curry is Healthcare Acting, which is a combination of Curry’s Communication Program and Curry’s School of Nursing.

The course seeks to have theater students act as patients in real-life scenarios for nursing students to practice on to prepare them for their nursing careers. Healthcare Acting is collaboratively taught by Professor Marcy Holbrook, Director of the Drama Center and Theater Program, and Dr. KatherineMarie Conover, Associate Professor of the Nursing Program.

Healthcare Acting was first established in 2020 after the School of Nursing acquired a grant from The Davis Education Foundation which funded equipment and other technology used in simulation labs for nursing students. The course, which is three credits ran for the first time in Spring 2021 and has been offered three times since then.

In the section of the class Professor Holbrook teaches, she does a variety of improv exercises to get students warmed up.

“I have people in this class that are very comfortable on stage and I have people in this class that are shy and they need to kind of have a couple of laughs and start to feel comfortable before we do things,” Holbrook said.

Through the section of the class Professor Holbrook teaches, she hopes her students take away the skill of understanding and apply that to their work with patients.

“To be a good actor and to do the simulations, you have to understand. You have to be able to see what’s happening,” Holbrook said. “Why does that person, why are they timid, or what kind of past history do they have that might make them act the way they do.”

Students enjoy the acting and improv section of the class Professor Holbrook teaches. Jonah Cowan, a senior Public Health and Wellness major enjoys portraying various characters.

“So far, I have done my Practicum for this class where I had to portray a specific character, and was interacted with by some of the nursing students,” Cowan said. “It was a really interesting situation to be in because as somebody who’s also invested in and involved in Curry Theater, it’s cool to kind of learn how to be a new type of role interacting with people who aren’t actors.”

The nursing aspect of the class, taught by Dr. Conover, involves real-life patient cases, with the goal of truly understanding the person behind the patient.

“Really focusing in on that person because every patient ever is a person,” Dr. Conover said. “Focusing in on who that person is helps us to portray them authentically and respectfully.”

Dr. Conover hopes that theater students are able to accurately portray various patient scenarios for nursing students in the simulations to make them better nurses once they graduate.

“Every time we can do a simulation where the nursing students get to practice something, and using my actors to help them to understand that human perspective,” Dr. Conover said. “We’ve got lots of wonderful manakins. The manakins are great for a lot of things, but they don’t teach our nursing students how to be caring and kind and that patient-centered care.”

Healthcare Acting attracts students from a variety of majors. Maene Falette, a junior Early Education and Care major, enjoys the nursing part of the class.

“You get to see the insight and all the technologies of what’s being used and all that,” Falette said. “Lot of robots. It’s really cool. Really fun.”

The course identification number, COM 2460, plans to be offered once a year in the fall semester per the chair of the Communication department.

Curry is one of just 5 to 10 schools in the country that has a nursing and theater collaboration class that serves to train future nurses. Healthcare Acting currently meets two days a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with Tuesdays in one of the simulation labs in the Kennedy building and Thursdays in the Keith Auditorium.