Healthcare trade professionals can traditionally be a hard audience to reach and to relay your messages to. Mundipharma International Limited (MINT) and its independent associated companies wanted to look to a new way to reach this audience and demonstrate their expertise in the oncology and pain management sector.
The move followed a survey of cancer patients from across Europe, which revealed that more than half surveyed said they had to proactively raise the topic of pain with their doctor and one in three felt the pain was so intolerable they wanted to die. A new approach was clearly needed to help the medical community more actively support patients and their families.
MINT and its associates turned to Cancer Tales - a play written by renowned London playwright Nell Dunn. The play tells of five women who have been affected by cancer but are struggling to communicate how it is affecting them.
Having seen the power the play was having on audiences, MINT and its associates worked with Nell and director Trevor Walker to produce an interactive workbook "Cancer Tales: Communicating in Cancer Care" using excerpts from the play to help communicate the play's key messages to healthcare professionals and to provide them with the tools to better communicate with their patients.
Since its launch in September 2007, the play and workbook have been taken on tour to medical conferences and events, where the workbook has helped the audience to learn from the play's messages and act on them. Healthcare professionals are taught through the play to not only improve their communications with their patients but also help their patients improve all aspects of their own communications with their loved ones.
The project has been so successful that elements of the workbook have now been translated into five languages and performed to clinicians in eight countries. Abstracts on the workbook have been presented at seven international congresses, over 18,000 copies of the workbook have been requested globally and the campaign has been recognised for communications excellence with a total of three industry Communiqué awards.
It is being supported by a number of leading organisations as well as being championed by Lance Armstrong, who provides the foreword for the workbook. In 2010, it will be launched as an online education tool.