Our Experience

Polly Wright

Polly is a part time teaching fellow in the Interactive Skills Unit of Birmingham University Medical School, teaching communication studies and literature in medicine. Her duties have included the facilitation of communication skills sessions with under-graduate medical and dental students, graduate entry students and junior doctors, and the delivery of Master Class sessions with post-graduate doctors through the West Midlands Deanery. She is also the course leader of popular special study modules in Literature and Medicine for second and third year medical undergraduates, and offers input to drama in medicine modules.

While at the university she has presented at ten conferences, including at the Royal College of Psychiatrists,( 2005) the Association for Arts and Humanities in Medicine in Truro ( 2005) and the Association for Medical Educators ( Leicester) 2008

Polly specialises in diversity and mental health issues. In 2007 she managed a successful conference for the ISU at Birmingham University called Play it Better, about the uses of drama and drama based approaches in mental health settings. With her colleague Jackie Beavan, she developed role play scenarios on the use of interpreters in mental health consultations in GP settings, which were taken up nationally by health and social care agencies and voluntary sector organisations. In 2009 she publishes an E GP session for the Diversity Curriculum on the Impact of Discrimination on Health, which explores the effects of discrimination on the health of the LGBT community.

She has written and co-authored many articles on the uses of the arts in health, medical and education settings, and on the uses of drama as a method of qualitative research.

Eve Jones (BA)

Eve has been working as a freelance trainer in Birmingham since 1991. Using theatre, role-play and other action methods as a vehicle for exploring behaviour, she has striven to promote equality, access, inclusion and effective communication.

Eve is currently working part-time as a freelance accredited trainer for the NHS National Cancer Action Team, delivering the Connected Advanced Communication Skills Training Course to senior clinicians working in cancer care and End of Life.

She is in training to become a Psychodrama Psychotherapist with the Birmingham Institute of Psychodrama, accredited by the British Psychodrama Association.

From 2003 to 2009 Eve was employed by the University of Birmingham Medical School as a teaching fellow in clinical communication, where she used role-play to teach the undergraduate medical students, dentists and nurses, and also postgraduate medical professionals from NYGoodHealth through the West Midlands Deanery.

She developed a special interest in cultural and language difference in the consultation, conflict resolution and in supporting doctors in difficulty. Eve has given peer- reviewed presentations at the Association of Medical Educators conference in 2003, at the Association of Medical Educators in Europe Conference in 2004 and 2005 and at The Royal Society of Medicine in 2006.

“I found the training that Eve delivered was of extremely high quality.

It was highly beneficial, and directly relevant to my practice and our needs. The standard of delivery and the professionalism and dedication were second to none.”