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PORTLAND, Maine

UNE's Add Verb Productions and faculty invited to present at public health and family medicine conferences

Add Verb Productions, a program of the University of New England, and colleagues from the UNE Graduate Programs in Public Health, Eastern Maine Medical Center and Maine Medical Center will present content from the play "Major Medical Breakthrough: The Healthcare Sector's Role in Preventing Violence" at three conferences this fall. 

The Maine and American Public Health Associations and the northeast region of the Family Medicine Education Consortium have all invited Add Verb to attend to demonstrate the power of theatre in health education.

Cathy Plourde, M.A., director of Add Verb Productions, and Denise Bisaillon, Ed.D., associate professor and director of the Graduate Programs in Public Health co-present the play, which addresses the health care provider's role in preventing interpersonal violence and sexual assault. The play was performed in full at the Maine Public Health Association meeting on Oct. 18, 2011 in Portland, Maine and will be presented on Friday, Oct. 21st at the Family Medicine Education Consortium in Danvers, Mass.. The play will be the subject of a panel presentation at the American Public Health Association in Washington, D.C. later in the month.

At both the Maine Public Health Association and American Public Health Association annual meetings, Plourde and Bisaillon are facilitating a discussion on how theatre can be used in pedagogy to inform policy and to help practitioners with their own professional responses to issues of interpersonal violence and sexual assault.

The Maine Public Health Association's mission is to provide Maine public health professionals with an opportunity to promote and assist with public health training, education, and recognition of model programs. 

The APHA annual meeting, a national health event, will take place Oct. 29 through Nov. 2. With more than 1,000 scientific sessions, 700 booths of information, and innovative public health products and services, this is an extremely important and notable meeting in the public health field.

At the Family Medicine Education Consortium conference in Danvers, Add Verb's actors will be joined by Eric Brown, M.D.,  from Eastern Maine Medical Center, a long time advocate of the physician's role in preventing and detecting domestic violence. Both Add Verb and Dr. Brown will present two different theatre-based strategies that can be utilized in medical education. Philip Heywood, executive director of the Northeast Osteopathic Medical Education Network, and Julie Schirmer, LCSW, director of behavioral health at the Family Medicine Residency Program of Maine Medical Center, will lead a discussion on theatre‚Äôs role in cultivating empathy, and its value in medical education programs.

About the University of New England

The University of New England is Maine’s largest independent university, with two beautiful coastal campuses in Maine, a one-of-a-kind study abroad campus in Tangier, Morocco, and an array of flexible, accredited online degrees. In an uncommonly welcoming and supportive community, we offer hands-on learning, empowering students to make a positive impact in a world full of challenges. The state’s top provider of health professionals, we are home to Maine’s only medical college, Maine’s only dental college, a variety of other interprofessionally aligned health care degree programs, as well as nationally recognized programs for marine science degrees, natural and social sciences degrees, arts and humanities degrees, and business degrees.