Sue Sisley

Sue Sisley, a resident physician at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center, is committed to preventing teen pregnancy in Arizona and nationwide. Currently, Arizona has the 4th highest rate of teen pregnancy in the country. Last year, under Sue's leadership, the Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center in conjunction with Desert Stages Theatre embarked upon a public health project entitled The Think it Through Revue, a 30 minute musical promoting sexual abstinence among teens and at-risk youth, to tour schools statewide.

Sue began a year ago by assembling teenagers from all over the Valley and orchestrating an improvisational workshop where kids replayed various adolescent interactions including dating, first love and peer pressure. Sue then videotaped these efforts and generated the script from their dialogue.

To subsidize the costs of touring the musical production, Sue, who had no prior experience writing grants, wrote more than 40 grants proposals that generated more than $120,000. In addition, Sue managed to galvanize support from diverse partners in the community– groups that have traditionally been competitive with each other– to work towards the same mission.

Over the past six months, more than 60,000 people have seen the show and there is often a deluge of kids who rush the stage afterwards to share their own personal experiences.

Since its inception, The Think It Through Revue has been supported entirely by volunteers, from the directors and producer to the writers, cast and administrative staff. Parent volunteers book, schedule and coordinate the tours and more experienced cast members aid in teaching the newer cast members.

Sue's most recent accomplishment is the newly formed coalition with the Hispanic community. Bilingual teenagers were called upon to revamp the original script to reflect a Latino motif. The completed Spanish version, Piensalo Bien, is scheduled to premiere February of 1999.