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For more information about The Method and its patient-centric professional development
experiences visit

Life in a Day

Company Spotlight

A Life in a Day by The Method

Patient centricity has become a key aspiration for the pharma industry over the last several years, but getting entire organisations to think and behave in a patient-centric way can be challenging. The Method is an innovative learning and development company delivering a ground-breaking programme designed to achieve tangible patient-centric results within pharma and healthcare

The Method’s flagship programme, A Life in a Day, provides immersive simulations that place participants into the shoes of a patient, allowing them to directly experience the physical, social and emotional challenges that patients face every day. Its power lies in its ability to measurably increase empathy, and has been proven to inspire lasting patient-centric thinking and activity.

“It’s through empathy that we are able to relate, understand and connect with each other,” says Mark Doyle, co-founder of The Method and creator of A Life in a Day. “By living the life of a patient in one day, it unlocks a deeper understanding of patients’ needs that can be used to build more meaningful patient-centric strategies across all business units.”

The Method is a British-based company founded by Doyle and his business partner, John Keates, in 2004. With a background in theatre and film, the two men harnessed their ability to create emotional connections with audiences, giving rise to professional development experiences unlike any other. A Life in a Day has been delivered globally to more than 4,000 people in 55 countries.






Using empathy to inspire lasting patient centricity

The focus on empathy is key to The Method and particularly its A Life in a Day programme. Studies show that in healthcare it improves care and patient outcomes, helps people recover from illness quicker and builds trust between patients and healthcare professionals. For pharma, becoming more empathetic and having a holistic understanding of what patients face on a daily basis will inspire better patient-centric thinking, leading to more meaningful interactions with healthcare professionals and better products for patients.

Those who take part in A Life in a Day regularly report real and lasting change as a direct result of the programme, such as changing marketing and patient materials to become more patient-focused and putting patients’ experiences at the heart of new projects and conversations.

The Method delivers its A Life in a Day programme using a combination of live role play, multimedia materials, physical items and artificial intelligence via a smartphone app. Experiences, which cover conditions such as heart failure, renal cell carcinoma and lupus, run for a 24-hour period and integrate into the working day, allowing people to learn in the flow of work. They are designed hand-in-hand with patients and healthcare professionals to create emotive experiences that accurately reflect the reality of living with a chronic health condition and where the choices you make during the simulation determine what happens next, just like in real life.

• For more information about The Method and its patient-centric professional development experiences visit A Life in a Day

About the interviewee

Mark Doyle

Mark Doyle is co-founder of The Method, a British company offering innovative and immersive learning and development programmes to effect behaviour change, and creator of its award-winning A Life in a Day experience. Using his background as a professional actor and entrepreneur, Mark creates emotional connections with audiences by upending traditional learning methods and developing immersive experiences involving actors, multimedia materials, physical items and even artificial intelligence delivered via a smartphone app.

Driven by a belief that healthcare works best when it centres around patients’ needs, Mark designed A Life in a Day to support the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries in developing patient-centric strategies for more impactful engagement. Experiences are designed to evoke an emotional response, inspiring those who take part to become more aware of patients’ needs and consider how they can make a lasting, positive change.

Mark is also an energising and sought-after speaker on the subjects of understanding patients’ needs and changing behaviour.

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