The play will be performed by the Wit cast of the Denver Center Theatre Company. The reading is part of the Wit Educational Initiative, an innovative medical training program that uses local theater productions of Wit to foster greater understanding within the medical community about the special needs of dying patients.
Wit chronicles the experiences of a literature professor stricken by advanced ovarian cancer.
Through the professor s experience of her illness and her treatment in a major cancer research center, the audience is confronted with many of the challenges faced by dying patients and their caregivers. Recent research has shown that medical and other healthcare schools may not adequately prepare professionals to treat dying people. Current training methods often consist of classroom sessions and textbooks which may not be the most effective ways to learn the sensitive skills needed in dealing with the terminally ill. During the Wit Educational Initiative, healthcare students and faculty attend the play and then are led through small-group discussions. It s extremely difficult to teach, in the classroom, the personal development that patients go through when they re dying.