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To the Editor: Drs Yao and Larson,¹ in their article in The Patient-Physician Relationship series, draw attention to the value that practicing the art of acting can have for physicians. As a pediatrician and actor, I have found my training in acting to be among the most powerful skills I bring to my practice. Although some physicians may disagree with the authors’ premise, these objections most likely flow from a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose and practice of acting.

Although popularly conceived of as a craft for make-believe and counterfeit emotions, acting is rather—like all of the arts—a means of presenting a distilled, heightened reality. I’m sure that all of us in medicine have had days when we really do not want to see another patient, yet we have no choice. Before going into that examination room, we ask ourselves a few questions: Do I go in as myself, feeling . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Kenneth Haller, MD
hallerka@slu.edu
Department of Pediatrics
St Louis University School of Medicine
St Louis, Mo

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