COVID-19 Takes Center Stage at Inaugural Theater Festival

FORT WORTH – As we continue to move further away from the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccinations have become the dominant conversation about COVID.

The TCU Department of Theatre collaborated with the TCU School of Medicine and took to the stage in early April to explore the wide array of conversations people have had about COVID-19 vaccinations in the Stethoscope Stage 2022 Play Festival.

“Powerful and emotional are the words that come to my mind after watching the performances,” said Mohanakrishnan Sathyamoorthy, M.D., FACC, Chair of Internal Medicine at the TCU School of Medicine.

Among the 10 monologues and short plays performed was one by Sarah Cheema, a third-year medical student at TCU School of Medicine.  Her short play titled, “Not Another One,” focused on conversations between physicians and patients about the COVID-19 vaccine.

“It was important to hear her perspective because it wasn’t only her as a student trying to be there and understand her role,” Mary Suzanne Whitworth, M.D., Cook Children’s Hospital, Director of Infectious Diseases Department said. “It was also her as a medical provider trying to be there for her patients.”

The Stethoscope Stage play festival, founded by Ayvaunn Penn BA, MA, MFA, an instructor at the TCU Department of Theatre, aims to build the essential bridge of empathy between patients and medical professionals that leads to enriched health care experiences. The national play festival uses art to facilitate open, honest, factual conversation between health care providers and members of the public on COVID-19 and vaccinations.

Following the performances, a community discussion with the audience was led by Dr. Sathyamoorthy; Dr. Whitworth; Claudia Perez, M.D., assistant professor at TCU School of Medicine and a Neurocritical Care physician at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital; and Glenda Daniels, Ph.D., RN, CNS, CGRN, associate professor at TCU Harris College of Nursing & Health Sciences.

The opening monologue for the show was an up-tempo jazz-inspired song that focused on misinformation about the effects of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Fighting against misinformation has been one of the most difficult challenges health care provers have faced on the frontlines, according to Dr. Whitworth.

“It is disheartening because it is like we’re in a storm trying to hold up the umbrella and getting soaking wet and there are people on the other side of the street laughing at us because they are not getting wet,” Dr. Whitworth said. “If you’re not experiencing it you can get that sense that there is not really much going on but we are getting drenched.”

Many people in the audience shared stories with the panelists about the pros and cons they’ve experienced with the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

“The best vaccine is the one that you and your physician talk about,” Dr. Perez said. “They can look at what are the side effects. Which is the right medication for you and I think that is the most important part so you understand what the risks are.”

Dr. Sathyamoorthy, who is leading a Federal Drug Administration approved clinical trial to find additional solutions to help patients battle COVID-19, urged the audience to keep in mind the level of knowledge and data shared between scientists and researchers all across the world to develop the COVID-19 vaccines at such a rapid pace.

“The misinformation spreads so fast that people believe it will mutate your DNA and it’s been so tear provoking for us.” Dr. Sathyamoorthy said. “It can’t do any of that stuff. But it is a lifesaving vaccine that can protect you, your friends and family and others.”

Throughout the pandemic, some of the pillars of the medical schools’ innovative curriculum to create Empathetic Scholars®, such as treating patients with compassion and empathy, are things medical providers have had to lean on, Dr. Sathyamoorthy added.

“If we communicate to them top down it really feels like a sliding mountain coming towards that individual,” Dr. Sathyamoorthy said. “As we talk to every last one of our patients over the last two years, we took out a lot of extra time and conversation because we felt it was our responsibility to be the voice of reason and voice of truth. And the feedback for us has largely been positive.”

It all goes back to building a relationship of trust with your patient, according to Dr. Sathyamoorthy.

“We have to step up and say I’m going to spend that extra 10 minutes which I really don’t have but I’m going to do it because it’s the right thing to do in a pandemic,” Dr. Sathyamoorthy said.

Stethoscope Stage Official Selections 

The following monologues and short plays were performed at Stethoscope Stage 2022. 

• Not Another One by Sarah Cheema, MS-3 at TCU School of Medicine
• Field of Screams by Phil Darg
• Vaccines by Hanna Douglas
• To Be The Exception by Kyla Kachmarik
• Getting the Booster by Michele Markarian
• My Decision by William Niles
• COVID-19 Vaccine by Chapin Pfeifle
• Breaking Free by Noah Tennant
• My Vaccination Story by Jazmine Velasquez
• For My Grandma by Jessi White

Scripts Chosen for HuMed Journal Publication

The following scripts were chosen by the editors of TCU School of Medicine’s HuMed Journal for publication.

• Not Another One by Sarah Cheema, MS-3 at TCU School of Medicine
• Another ‘Q’ Word Day in the Boondocks by Kavneet Kaur, MS-3 at TCU School of Medicine
• Feel by Shelby Wildish, MS-3 at TCU School of Medicine