‘This Stuff Changes the World’.
Breakfast: “A giant bowl of oatmeal and blueberries with maple syrup.” Hometown: “I grew up in Rockdale, Texas, but my heart, and where I really found myself, is in Austin, Texas, where I went to undergrad.” Extracurriculars: Hiking, pulp fiction books, and cocktails.
Chase Crossno (SPH’15) Alumna; Assistant Artistic Director and Assistant Professor of Medical Education at the Texas Christian University and University of North Texas Health Science Center (TCU and UNTHSC) School of Medicine
What recently brought you back to SPH?
I was asked by Lois McCloskey to join the leadership council for a conference called “Bridging the Chasm between Pregnancy and Women’s Health over the Life Course.” I led a team of actor-facilitators in the use of storytelling and improvisational theatre activities intended to encourage connection, diminish perceived power dynamics, and provide a brave environment for sharing and listening to stories from the different stakeholder groups.
What is the value of improvisation and storytelling in medical and public health contexts like this conference?
In improv, one of your fundamental goals is to say ‘yes, and’ to anything that your partner offers you. If you’ve come in with the idea that the scene is taking place in Target, and then your partner walks in and says, ‘What a beautiful park! I’d love to get some ice cream,’ you let go of your idea and you say, ‘Yes, and then let’s sit on this bench to watch passersby!’
In medicine and public health, we often get attached to a specific outcome, or a specific method to try to drive that outcome. We sometimes fail to listen deeply for insights that might surprise us and take us in a different, more effective direction.
As for storytelling, it helps us connect. It provides perspective—often a perspective that you yourself don’t have because that’s not your lived experience.
Failure to connect and communicate with compassion and clarity contribute to disparate health outcomes, and improvisation and storytelling are two strategies that can help us improve the skills we need to connect and communicate with people—both people that we’re comfortable around and, more importantly, people we struggle to relate to.
What led you to storytelling and performance?
It may be a surprise to many people who know me, but I was a socially anxious young person. I had my (very precious) collection of rocks that I would sing to, but if you put a person in the room I would clam up. My parents encouraged me to explore the arts and through that I began to discover a new way of seeing, being, connecting, and communicating.
As I continued to explore the theater and connect with film, books, and stories, it occurred to me, “This is the stuff! This stuff, where we tell each other stories and we take each other on these journeys, where we recognize each other—this stuff changes the world.”
What then led you to combine storytelling and performance with public health?
In undergrad I majored in theater, then added a second major in cultural anthropology, encouraged by an acting professor. When I graduated I moved to Namibia, which shocked my parents, who thought I would join my friends in New York to give acting a go. Namibia is where I really began engaging more intentionally and clearly in public health work and the use of theater and story.
I had a very challenging time in Namibia, and a lot of it was directly related to a lack of preparation. It was a tumultuous two-and-a-half-year period, and then I came roaring back to the United States with a mixture of rage and sadness about everything I had discovered and everything that I thought was wrong with the world.
I went back to my safe place: Austin. I worked for the largest HIV/AIDS service organization in Texas. While I was there, I was contemplating some of the issues that had come up in Namibia. Namely, that we send people to work in communities that they don’t understand, and we send them with ego rather than humility, and with content and statistics rather than skills in inquiry—“Here’s a bunch of book knowledge, now go into this rural community in Texas, or go to Namibia, go into this gay bar”—and it was happening to me again in Austin. I was setting up HIV testing tables at an adult viewing room outside of Austin, where people met to have sex—often with strangers, often on the down-low—and I was just sitting there at this little table being like, “Hi, do you want to talk to me about HIV? Do you want to talk to me about STDs? Did you come here to hook up with somebody? Do you want to talk about that?”
I started to lean into my theater training. I realized that the best thing I could do was be present and assume that everybody already knew a lot more than I did, and then “yes, and” the shit out of it. When I was able to let go of my need to control a situation, and let go of my ego and everything I thought I knew, I was much more successful at caring for people and finding what they needed.
While I was doing that work in Austin, I realized that I needed a better understanding of the bigger picture. I needed context and tools. Looking for mentorship and a place to learn, I came across an article about Lisa Messersmith’s work with people living with HIV/AIDS in Vietnam. It was incredible work and I knew she could help me grow, so I applied to SPH.
After several years at SPH, as a student and then a staff member, you recently moved on to a new position. Where are you now?
I’m the assistant artistic director at the new TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine. I work with the dean of narrative reflection and patient communication—the first dean-level appointment at a medical school focused directly on developing compassionate communication skills for faculty and students.
We’re building an interdisciplinary framework that uses pedagogy from theater, art, journalism, social justice, communication studies, and a range of other disciplines. Our students are going to come out of this school understanding how empathy, reflection, and compassion translate into their patient care and into being socially responsible physicians engaged with the public, the media, and the government. It’s not limited to how the doctor treats the patient.
The whole goal of the curriculum that our team is building is to help us all become more responsible, conscious, and compassionate people. I feel like that’s a pretty damn good mission.