“I Will Never Forget”: What We Learned from Medical Student Reflections on a Palliative Care Experience

Abstract

Systematic analysis of reflective writing provides educators with valuable data about students' learning experiences. These results may inform the design and modification of the curriculum.

The Utility of Reflective Writing after a Palliative Care Experience: Can We Assess Medical Students' Professionalism?

“…38 The literature supports this trend with examples of recently implemented medical student PC curricula incorporating reflective essays. [39][40][41][42][43] These publications highlight the powerful impressions and important lessons students wrote about, 39,40 and report student themes focused on what was learned, including about themselves, the patient, and being a doctor, and what was experienced, including internal emotional responses and self-transformation. 41 These authors however, did not use the specific lens of professionalism to analyze their essay data.…”

Junior Doctors’ Views of How Their Undergraduate Clinical Electives in Palliative Care Influenced Their Current Practice of Medicine

“…Consequently, questions were refined as participants were interviewed. The main areas to be discussed during the interviews were chosen on the basis of existing literature [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] and drew upon the most memorable aspects of the palliative care attachments, the initial experiences with the death of a patient (as students and as junior doctors), perceived differences with peers who did not undertake palliative care attachments, and the usefulness and value of the skills learned during the attachment as practicing junior doctors. The interviews were specifically focused on the palliative care attachments in years 4, 5, or 6 and on what was learned in those attachments that the participants believed was important to them as junior doctors.…”

“…Similarly, our findings are comparable to shortterm findings from studies about the impact of palliative care education. [8][9][10][11][12][13] It could be argued that participants may have had difficulties recalling specific aspects of their palliative care training, as some of them had graduated over five years before the interviews. However, as the interviews were about their experiences and perceptions as they recalled them, this aspect should not hinder the integrity and relevance of the results.…”

“…5 Many training initiatives have been implemented at different points throughout undergraduate medical training. [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] These have included 20-hour mandatory coursework sessions 7 ; 1-day visits to a hospice 8 ; 16 hours in a community hospice 9 ; a 4-day curriculum 6,10 ; and 1 week, 2 weeks, or 3 weeks of palliative care attachments (i.e., clinical electives) during the clinical years. [11][12][13] However, there is little information available to guide medical educators in how to best incorporate the teaching of palliative care into medical curricula.…”

“…6,7,11 Studies report that students learn about the value of hospice care, the value of empathy, the value of the doctor-patient relationship, 12 and what it means to be a doctor 13 ; acknowledge a difference between resignation and acceptance; and start to understand death as a natural event. 8 Furthermore, students describe feeling more support and having a richer experience of role modeling after training in palliative care.…”