I became a very good and popular teacher, but it was a gradual process.
I was a debater during junior high and high school. I learned to make public statements, although I was not first class.
Harvard University had some entertaining and brilliant teachers, especially in general courses. Students could attend whatever classes they desired for the first two weeks of the semester. I often attended several classes (eight or ten) for two weeks, and chose the interesting ones (four) for the rest of the semester. Entertaining teachers were rewarded, as they had larger classes and helpful graduate students. Of course, there was little pressure for science teachers to be interesting, although one basic chemistry class was entertaining, especially when he performed fancy experiments in front of the large class. Not surprisingly, I was drawn to interesting teachers.
The first year of medical school was totally dull and pressured, although the pharmacologists in the second year were much more interesting. Also, one famous teacher (George L. Engel) interviewed a patient, whom he knew for several years, and whom he included in some published papers. He demonstrated that listening intently to patients informs us so well that we can in some ways predict (vaguely) the patient’s future.
When I completed training and started employment, I was asked to provide psychiatric information to the family practice residents at the University of Minnesota (but stationed in St. Louis Park). I was thrilled at the opportunity to become a teacher. I started off with the typical method of talking about something important (psychiatric issues relating to family practice) and then leading a discussion. A resident fell asleep during my presentation. It upset me greatly. I read library articles to figure out more interesting ways to teach medicine or psychiatry. Very little was published.
My next step was to use actors (actor = actor/actress) to participate in education. I contacted the University of Minnesota and convinced some acting students to come to Methodist Hospital at noon time. I talked to the upcoming actor on the phone; I told the acting student how to portray a certain patient. Within a couple of sentences the acting student would usually say that he or she knew someone just like that. One resident would interview the actor for about five or ten minutes. Then we would discuss the interview, and repeat the process, with a different resident to interview the actor. At the end of the one-hour meeting, the actor gave his or her impressions of the interviews. This method was popular and praised for a few years. The problem was that it took a lot of time to get an actor, and to get him or her to the hospital.
Soon we could rent movies. This was the big change. On television, I witnessed a 2-minute scene from a popular movie, followed by professional comments. Furthermore, a professor at Columbia University used scenes from movies, although they were extremely old -- from the 1920s or 30s. I started by using the one scene which I had seen on television. The audience liked it.
I bought copies of the movies, found 2 to 4-minute useful scenes, and over time used about 120 different movie scenes. I found popular and entertaining scenes.
Using entire movies was not useful, since most of my teaching experiences were only an hour or two at most
Entire movies demonstrated too many issues to discuss, and were not related to the main issue which I was trying to make
Even a brief scene stimulated many thoughts and comments
Scenes from popular movies were entertaining, but were not technical, medical, or psychiatric in nature. They often started a great discussion, but did not give a psychiatric or psychological answer. Only the audience members or I did that.
I noticed that students or audience members would start to talk about the movie scene, and within one or two sentences often would talk about themselves rather than about the actor. This was excellent teaching, since the audience would be stimulated to talk about very personal information and treatment issues, both about themselves and their patients.
It is hard to keep my thoughts and insights about movie scenes short and simple. However, in general …
Often, scenes stimulated a great discussion, but did not provide final or rigid answers
Audience members often had subtle and controversial feelings about the actors
We described why we cared about the actor, and why we felt compassionate with people similar to that personality
Similarly, if we hated or distrusted a particular actor, we figured out why we felt that way. We thus learned about our self or about our patient.
Different backgrounds of audience members (nurse/doctor/psychologist/etc.) sometimes had brilliant or original insights
Other issues related to diagnosis. For example, if there was an unhappy actor, we discussed how to decide whether someone had major depression. Depending on the diagnosis, we could then discuss whether to recommend treatment. We would determine whether he or she needed antidepressants and/or psychotherapy, or did not need treatment.
Another common set of issues related to personality disorders. Based on the scene, we could then discuss which aspects suggested a personality disorder, and which information was needed to make an accurate diagnosis.
Some members of the audience had particular backgrounds.
I showed a scene from A Few Good Men (corrupt army leader), and one audience person worked for the military. He said that he treated a teenager for a few sessions, and then asked the parents to attend the next session. The father arrived for the session dressed up as a general. This young therapist was intimidated and nervous, but he got courageous, and despite the fear of disturbing a fully-clothed general, confronted the father (kindly), and the session went very well.
I showed a scene from a movie set in India (Monsoon Wedding). A woman in the audience, who was from India, pointed out several aspects of the scene which we had totally missed, because we did not understand the subtlety of that situation.
People in the audience often had very important viewpoints. Sometimes, people pointed out something that the movie scene illustrated about their feelings, and, even though I had shown it many times, neither I nor my audiences previously noticed the issue. It was a great insight.
I was a good psychiatrist and teacher, but I was also able to encourage members in the audience to share their own experience and intelligence. Using movie scenes improved teaching. Classically, most medical teachers gave a lecture for 45 minutes and then received questions for five or 10 minutes from the audience. In contrast, I showed a 2 to 5-minute scene, made a few insights, and then asked the audience to make remarks. In other words, I engaged audience members every few minutes rather than once an hour.