New Podcast Asks: What Would You Do When Mental Illness Derails a Successful Life?

What should a doctor do when his patient’s spouse begs him to commit her husband on an involuntary hold? When medical illness strikes a business owner, is his partner right to ask him to conceal his treatment from clients? And if a psychiatrist isn’t making enough money in medical insurance reimbursements to cover his daughter’s school, should he go to a cash-only practice, knowing it will leave many of his patients without care? These are just some of the ethical questions that mental health care providers, family, friends and colleagues may face when someone they know is struggling with mental illness. The team behind the Hard Call podcast “Derailed: When Mental Illness Throws a Life Off Track” is bringing the ethical challenges of mental healthcare to life through dramatization and interviews with those involved in a real-life patient case. Dr. Matt Wynia, Director of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities on the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, is the brains behind the Hard Call team. As a trained actor as well as physician, he knows the power of storytelling through performance. Hard Call dramatizes the real-life case of a Colorado entrepreneur, whose family, colleagues and doctors all had to make “hard calls” when it came to his condition. By dramatizing the situations in a live theater performance, the audience had the opportunity to make those calls themselves, and discover just how difficult it is. The December 2016 stage performance at the Fulginiti Pavilion on the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus was recorded so that the theatrical performance could be edited in to the podcast for wider distribution. Additional interviews with the real-life people involved supplements the stage portions, and like during the live performance, listeners are asked “what would you do?” at critical decision-making points. Hard Call is intended to challenge medical students, healthcare professionals and the public on these difficult issues. NMHIC staff is delighted to have supported Dr. Wynia and his team, particularly during the early discussions about the form Hard Call should take and how best to distribute this powerful podcast.