Failure for many of us may mean a learning opportunity. Failure for a medical resident can have much more catastrophic consequences. Medical education has long focused on the acquisition of knowledge, memorizing symptoms, mastering diagnostic tools, and quickly assessing and treating patients. While the gathering of this knowledge is critical, there is little time left for teaching physicians-in-training the equally critical skills of working with patients. Medical faculty began to notice that the newest to their field were saturated with medical knowledge but lacking in the observational and interpersonal skills necessary for their success as diagnosticians. While recognizing this lack, they also realized that it would be difficult to foster these skills in a medical environment where the consequences of failure are great and the students work habits are more difficult to overcome.

In this session, the curator of education from the Hunter Museum of American Art and the Southeast Center for Education in the Arts' director of theatre education will lead participants through a creative process demonstration of their work with transitional residents and interns at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine in Chattanooga. Participants will experience how the facilitators take the physicians-in-training out of their comfort realm by fostering their observational and interpersonal skills around the visual and theatre arts rather than with "patient". After each presented task, the facilitators will ask participants to critically think through their experience and question the impact, as well as the design, of the project.

Dr. Adera Causey is the Curator of Education at the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga. She joined the staff in November 2003 as part of a large-scale reinstallation and new programmatic plan for the museum. At the Hunter, she continues to work on gallery interpretation as well as overseeing the education department’s wide range of programs for children and adults and holds primary responsibility for weekly programming series, corporate programming, and university teaching. Prior to the Hunter, she was the head of education at the Duke University of Museum of Art where for five years she developed a large-scale education program for a growing museum and taught Duke undergraduate students. Adera has also worked with the education departments of the Ackland Art Museum and the Corcoran Gallery and has taught at the university level. She received her B.A. from the University of Maryland at College Park, her M.A. in art history with a focus on 19^th century American landscape painting from George Washington University, and she did her PhD coursework at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a focus on American art and Southern history.

Laurie Melnik is the director of theatre education at the Southeast Center for Education in the Arts. She has a B.A. in English with a speech minor from Webster University, St. Louis, MO and a MFA in theatre for young audiences from the University of Central Florida, Orlando. Prior to joining SCEA, Laurie taught theatre at Grain Valley High School in Grain Valley, Missouri. She has been very active in the St. Louis arts community as an adjunct faculty member at Webster University; a teaching artist for Metro Theater Company working with Interchange, an arts integration collaborative; and an education associate and teaching artist at STAGES. She was an Arts Bridge Scholar, guest instructor, and graduate assistant at the University of Central Florida. Laurie also worked as a teaching artist and facilitated professional development workshops for the Orlando Repertory Theatre. As a community arts training fellow at the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission, she engaged in dialogue and research on ways the arts can partner with social service providers and play an active role in community arts partnerships. In her role as teaching artist, she has engaged with diverse populations of young people with special needs. Laurie is a playwright and delights in fostering students’ writing abilities.