The document summarizes feedback from nursing students and medical professionals who participated in Moral Agency Theater workshops designed by Dr. Susan Stocker and Kathleen Puri. The workshops use role-playing scenarios to help participants practice addressing real-life moral dilemmas in healthcare settings. Students and staff reported that the workshops improved their ability to evaluate situations from different perspectives, communicate more clearly even in difficult situations, and find solutions to problems through collaboration. The workshops have been well-received and shown to still impact participants' abilities to handle moral dilemmas up to a year later.

1. Betty R. Zmaj Rn, MS, CNE, Associate
Professor of Nursing, Chattanooga State
Community College:
“Ethics, Collaboration, Critical Thinking for
effective communication and Problem
solving - Dr. Stocker wraps it up in a lively
interactive package”.
Dr. Anke Zbikowski
Gender a Medicine Program
Linköping University:
“An increase in the staff’s ability to act in
situations with a moral dilemma was
confirmed, even one year after the
intervention”.
Nursing students’ comments at
Chattanooga State Community College:
“Wonderful experience! Helpful with the
challenge to evaluate my actions, touch,
tone, stance and words”.
“I thought this was great! It helped the
way we interpret and judge things from
outside looking in and seeing things from
other people’s view!”
“Being able to see others’ perspective on
different settings and how they deal with it
was eye-opening…it reminds me that
everyone thinks differently and
communication needs to be clear!”
“Your teaching was very helpful and
appreciated. It really helped seeing our
troubled situations being acted out and
fixed by colleagues. Thank you for that”.
“The most useful exercise, for me, was
seeing problem scenarios of a protagonist
and how we should/could deal with staff
and patient interactions. Thanks!”
Workshops designed to help find
solutions to moral challenges in the clinic
www.matworkshops.com
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2. All medical practitioners have the experience of
being part of an exchange with a patient that didn’t
go well. Whereas moral dilemmas trouble us in
ordinary life, they can be especially troubling in
medical encounters where a patient’s health,
well-being, or sense of hope may be diminished, or
when an errant word can outweigh a practitioner’s
good intentions. But what to say and how?—this
is often not obvious. What should a nurse say to a
colleague who delays giving needed pain
medication? How should a doctor inform already
distressed parents that their child died in the
surgical theater? What should a staff member say
to another who is speaking harshly about a patient
or family member? How might we respond to a
patient’s sudden outburst of grief, sorrow, or fear
of death? And to whom do we direct our
actions/words?
The Moral Agency TheaterSM workshop-based
method of medical ethics invites participants to
practice moral deliberation in challenging medical
situations. Focusing on the concerns raised during
everyday clinical encounters, our workshops are
designed to foster a collaborative and creative
space in which we can rehearse alternatives to
moral dilemmas from our own experience as
caregivers. We can enhance our skills of moral
deliberation and action by working together to find
better responses to complex and challenging
encounters.
This workshop will provide a practical and
engaging opportunity for care providers to think
and work together to address such troubling
situations. Problematic encounters are thus
framed in scenarios that invite revision, so that
moral agency can be enacted, challenged, and
enacted again. When we act well, says Aristotle,
our actions are directed:
to the right person
to the right extent
at the right time
for the right reason, and
in the right way.
Format
Moral Agency Theater workshops are 3 hours long
with a 10 minute coffee break.
For
Medical practitioners and those in training for
some form of medical practice: in medicine,
nursing, dental, therapeutic, or midwives.
Approval
This continuing education activity was approved by
the Tennessee Nurses Association, an accredited
approver by the American Nurses Credentialing
Center's Commission on Accreditation.
(approval #10614)
Interested?
Contact Dr. Stocker at info@matworkshops.com
Dr. Susan Stocker, M.A., M.A., Ph.D.
Ph.D. Georgetown University,
M.A., University of Pennsylvania,
M.A. St. John's College
E-mail: susanstocker7@gmail.com
Kathleen Puri, M.S.N., B.S., RN
M.S.N. Nursing Management,
University of Connecticut
B.S. Health Science,
University of Hartford
Nursing Diploma,
St. Francis Hospital School of Nursing
E-mail: kathleenpuri@gmail.com
Annually for each of the past 5 years Kathleen and
I have given these workshops for nursing
students at Chattanooga State Community
College. My background in medical ethics
dovetails well with her practical nursing
experience. We enjoy learning from and with our
workshop participants about the dilemmas they
pose and the solutions they find.
www.matworkshops.comwww.matworkshops.com
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