A Time To Dance: Improvising the Art of Human Connection in Medicine
Madeline Erwich, Duke Divinity School, University of South Florida, College of Medicine
As a medical student, I have observed that the limiting pressures of productivity, efficiency, and time in the clinical setting can discourage clinicians from genuinely engaging with their patients’ invitations for connection. Of greater concern, the structure of medical education precludes the exploration of such interactions by training medical students to treat empathy in the clinical encounter as a checklist item. Yet from my experience as a chaplain trainee delving deep into patients’ broader webs of life, it is apparent that finding a way to accept a patient’s invitation to connect is vital to their care and healing. Drawing upon the healing narratives of Jesus Christ, the work of Samuel Wells, and my experience with improv partner dancing, I propose the concept of faithful improvisation as a fresh way to conceive of the art of human connection in medicine. Faithful improvisation cultivates a creative environment in which the patient-clinician encounter becomes a dance of attention, invitation, and restoration. I present the chaplain as exemplar of faithful improvisation and one who speaks a counter-cultural word about the formation of clinical relationships.
Wells defines improvisation as knowing “how to be faithful without a script,” identifying several key features of effective improvisation as a means for faithfully engaging Christian ethics (Wells 2025). Though Wells employs the example of theatrical improv, I explore Wells’ principles of improvisation through my experience as a competitive improv partner dancer. In Mark’s gospel, Jesus exemplifies the attentive, inviting, and restorative values of faithful improvisation in his healing of a man with a skin disease (Mark 1:40-45, NRSV). As one skilled in the dance of true human connection, Christ’s improvised relationship with the suffering other restores a diseased, disenfranchised, ostracized individual to health, hope, and belonging. By embodying Christ’s improvised dance of love for the sick and hurting, clinicians can find new hope for restorative connection with patients.
Learning to dance with patients requires rewriting the principles of clinical relationships modeled and reinforced in medical training. Chaplaincy offers just such a transformative lens. Chaplaincy taught me to assess not only the patient’s emotional and spiritual condition, but my own response to the encounter, such that my internal movements might themselves constitute a healing intervention. Experiencing moments of spiritual, existential, and relational restoration with patients gave me a vision for the kind of creative partnership which begets true relational connection.
References
Wells, Sam. 2025. “Improvising the Realm of God.” In-person lecture, May 20. Posted August 27, 2025, by Radius: the Religious Drama Society. YouTube, 45:00. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLAjHzs7Mx4.
Wells, Samuel. 2004. Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics. Brazos Press.
Wells defines improvisation as knowing “how to be faithful without a script,” identifying several key features of effective improvisation as a means for faithfully engaging Christian ethics (Wells 2025). Though Wells employs the example of theatrical improv, I explore Wells’ principles of improvisation through my experience as a competitive improv partner dancer. In Mark’s gospel, Jesus exemplifies the attentive, inviting, and restorative values of faithful improvisation in his healing of a man with a skin disease (Mark 1:40-45, NRSV). As one skilled in the dance of true human connection, Christ’s improvised relationship with the suffering other restores a diseased, disenfranchised, ostracized individual to health, hope, and belonging. By embodying Christ’s improvised dance of love for the sick and hurting, clinicians can find new hope for restorative connection with patients.
Learning to dance with patients requires rewriting the principles of clinical relationships modeled and reinforced in medical training. Chaplaincy offers just such a transformative lens. Chaplaincy taught me to assess not only the patient’s emotional and spiritual condition, but my own response to the encounter, such that my internal movements might themselves constitute a healing intervention. Experiencing moments of spiritual, existential, and relational restoration with patients gave me a vision for the kind of creative partnership which begets true relational connection.
References
Wells, Sam. 2025. “Improvising the Realm of God.” In-person lecture, May 20. Posted August 27, 2025, by Radius: the Religious Drama Society. YouTube, 45:00. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLAjHzs7Mx4.
Wells, Samuel. 2004. Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics. Brazos Press.