Game Changing Team Development for Healthcare Leaders – 1 Activity at a Time is designed for unit managers, nurse educators, physician leaders and anyone who works with healthcare teams. The idea is to teach you how to facilitate simple (VERY SIMPLE) medical improv activities with your staff a few minutes at a time. Next in person (York, ME – Nov 6) and online (Nov 1) sessions we will focus on “The Gift”. Adapted from Kat Koppett’s Training to Imagine, there are many variations and applications for healthcare teams in the dynamic exchange of invisible gift-giving.

One nurse teaches “The Gift”!

Dear Beth, I just wanted to let you know that yesterday at our monthly nurse staff meeting, I led our team in a medical improv activity for the first time.  It turned out that we had just enough time at the end of “business” to allow for it so we did. 

I didn’t know until the moment the torch was passed to me that we’d be able to – so impromptu improv!  I had planned to do the Radical Acceptance activity for the introductory one for this group, whenever it was going to happen, but ended up reassessing and tweaking the plan. 

It had been a rough week for our health center team.  We work very closely with several wonderful counselors and one of them had died unexpectedly. The funeral had been the previous day. 

hand reaching out towards light
Image by Jackson David from Pixabay

This staff member had only been with us for a year and was loved and respected by all. We had lost such a dear soul. So I decided that our energies were more aligned with doing The Gift. 

How did it go?

It was a big group – 18 of us there! – but we did it just as we sat in a circle around the big conference table and it was amazing.  The smiles!  The laughter! The surprises!  It felt like just what the group needed. I think everyone appreciated doing it, even though it meant bumping up against the edges of some comfort zones.  I received some nice comments and thanks about it afterward.  I hope we’ll be able to do more of this on a regular basis.

As you can tell, it didn’t take a lot of time and had a profound effect on the team. Not only that, but this was the first time this nurse taught the activity. The first time she taught any medical improv activity for that matter!

The best way to understand how this teaching modality can help your team or or organization is to experience it. Please consider learning how to facilitate The Gift or Radical Acceptance and other simple activities with your team at one of the train the trainers through Dartmouth Health offered in May 2023. Or reach out to schedule a session for your management team.

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  • Beth Boynton, RN, MS, CP

    Beth Boynton, RN, MS, CP (She/Hers) is an author and consultant specializing in communication and related skills.  She has been researching and teaching these skills to healthcare and mental health professionals for two decades! In addition to textbooks,  “Successful Nurse Communication: Safe Care, Healthy Workplaces, & Rewarding Careers” (Revised Reprint, 2023, F.A. Davis) and “Complexity Leadership: Nursing’s Role in Healthcare Delivery”, with Diana Crowell, PhD, RN, (2020, F.A. Davis), she wrote the industry first book on Medical Improv.  Personal note: I love working with psychotherapists, social workers and Personal note: I love working with visionary health and mental health care leaders because they understand how critical theses skills are and how challenging they can be to develop and practice. Especially in high-stakes, high-stress work we do and chaotic world we live in. I know this, not only as a teacher, nurse and trainer but also because of my own work in counseling many years ago. I will share more in this workshop! Join the email list for access to free videos, articles and more: http://sutra.co/space/6t9m26

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