Barton Hosts Medical Readers’ Theater Performance and Discussion

WILSON, N.C. – Barton College is pleased to welcome back the Readers Theater from the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University. On Thursday, April 3, at 7 p.m., medical students from the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University will present a public reading and discussion of Jay Baruch’s short story “Accident Room,” in the Hamlin Student Center Theater at Barton College. This presentation is open to the public at no charge and the community is invited to attend.

Baruch is an Emergency Medicine physician from Rhode Island. “Accident Room” appears in Baruch’s 2007 book of short stories, “Fourteen Stories: Doctors, Patients, and Other Strangers.” “Accident Room” tells the story of two physicians, one just out of residency and one who has remained in practice perhaps for too many years, with differing styles of patient care, and of a family trying to deal with a life-threatening emergency while caught between the approaches of the two physicians. The story raises issues of consent, patient decision-making, prolongation of life, and differing styles of providing information to the seriously ill.

The 30-minute reading will be followed by a discussion of the story moderated by a member of the medical school’s Department of Medical Humanities.

In Readers’ Theater, the performers read from scripts and do only a small amount of moving about the stage. Like radio dramas, much is left to the listener’s imagination. This presentation, part of an on-going Readers’ Theater program sponsored by the Department of Medical Humanities at ECU’s Brody School of Medicine, allows students and the general public (future physicians, potential future patients, colleagues in nursing, and other allied health professionals) to discuss together the social and ethical medical issues of common concern.

This program is sponsored by the School of Behavioral Sciences at Barton College and will last about an hour. For additional information, contact Dr. Steven Fulks, dean of the School of Behavioral Sciences at Barton College, at 252-399-6570, or contact Dr. Todd Savitt, Department of Medical Humanities at the Brody School of Medicine in Greenville, at 252-744-2797.

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Questions? Please contact Kathy Daughety, director of public relations, at 252-399-6529 or email: kdaughety@barton.edu.