News on Emotion Theatre from UCLA
Just a quick post today featuring a news article from UCLA Health Systems. They’re proud to tout Dr. Deng and the Relational Medicine Foundation for our plays this past summer in New York and announce that we plan to produce plays this spring in Los Angeles! Stay tuned for more details on that including dates.
“A lively discussion including the patients on whom the plays were based, their family members, physicians, the plays’ actors and director followed the performances at the Peter J. Sharp Theater. “It was a beautiful experience for everyone involved,” Dr. Deng says.
While Drs. Deng and Raia spent more than five years developing a theory of Relational Medicine before creating the non-profit foundation earlier this year, the principles behind it have roots in Western and Eastern philosophy.”
Read the whole article here.
The Wall Street Journal Weighs In
Here’s a great article about our plays in New York City last summer from the Wall Street Journal! It takes a look at the real stories that inspired our plays and gives some background on the project.
An excerpt is below, read the full article here.
“Central to Dr. Deng’s mission is the belief that health-care providers establish an open rapport with their patients, allowing them to play an active role in their own treatment. As it is, he says, the doctor-patient relationship is often that of two pre-conditioned automatons. “You can summarize this whole concept as the reintroduction of the ‘person’ into the process of medicine,” said Dr. Deng, who left his position at the Columbia University Medical Center last year to become the medical director of Advanced Heart Failure and Heart Transplantation and the Assist Heart Pump Program at the University of California-Los Angeles. His German and Chinese roots have led him to attempt to integrate the best practices from European medicine, Western medicine, and East Asian traditions like Buddhism and Taoism to create his Relational Medicine Theory.”
Another Look at the Doctor-Patient Relationship
Here’s a great article about improving the doctor-patient relationship and the impact it can have on our health. The article asserts that a whopping 83% of patients don’t follow their doctors’ advice and suggests ways that both patients and doctors can work together to improve communication.
Your health is a two-way street! Read a quick excerpt below and the rest of the article here.
People go to doctors because they want to improve overall health, as well as deal with specific concerns. But to get the most out of treatment, patients and doctors have to be on the same page. Too often there’s a disconnect between the two.
Experts agree that the American healthcare system’s focus is shifting increasingly to one that is outcome-based, with emphasis on preventing illness, rather than just treating patients once they’re sick. Success will require a shift in how patients and doctors approach each other.
