Here are a few examples of DRAW sessions filmed during GP teaching at St James’s Hospital in Portsmouth. The class comprises F2 doctors who hope to enter various specialities; only some will opt for GP training. Each video shows a complete DRAW session (flaws and all): a brief introduction, the short drama video clip (which is paused at the ‘springboard moment’), the transition into role-play (where an F2 doctor plays the part of the doctor and an experienced GP plays the part of the patient or relative), and the subsequent class discussion. A session normally concludes by showing briefly how the problem was dealt with in the source drama. Each whole-session video is between 15 and 20 minutes long. The short drama video clips used in the examples shown on this page are all derived from the BBC TV series Cardiac Arrest © — see footnote to this page.
Subarachnoid
The patient is critically ill with a subarachnoid haemorrhage. The wife is impatient: what treatment is he receiving? What will the neurosurgeon do when he gets to the General? The junior doctor is not sure. The wife is anxious. “He will get better won’t he, doctor?” The doctor starts to speak …
Mesothelioma
Is he very bad, doctor? This example DRAW scenario is based upon a problem posed in a fragment of the BBC TV series Cardiac Arrest. The difficult question for the doctor is how to talk to the patient’s wife, who is unrealistically optimistic regarding her husband’s condition. The husband has just died. A video of the complete
Organ donation
The situation here is that a fit and active young man has suffered a sudden brain haemorrhage and is now comatose and brain dead. His distraught wife, still in her teens, is trying to come to terms with the situation. Now is the time for the doctor to ask the wife for permission to remove his organs
Paracetamol OD
A patient has deliberately overdosed on paracetamol. The doctor visits his hospital bed. He asks for his drip to be removed. He wants to die. An F2 doctor role-plays in the video of the DRAW episode that follows. What should she say? … You need to log in to see the rest of the content
Footnote: The drama video clips used in the example DRAW sessions on this page are all fragments excerpted from the BBC TV series Cardiac Arrest ©, broadcast between 1994 and 1996. Cardiac Arrest has the distinction of being voted the best TV medical drama of all time by the UK medical profession. All 27 episodes are available as a boxed DVD set from the BBC. Copyright resides with the BBC. We understand that the use of these fragments in the context of DRAW does not constitute a copyright violation because of the educational, critical and transformative application, but others intending to use such sources should seek their own advice and do so at their own risk.