A Humanities Curriculum for Preparing Medical Students to Work With Dying Patients.

Abstract

Medical education literature lacks consensus on how to deliver and measure the efficacy of material about death and dying, a topic medical student learners identify as needing improvement. The humanities offer promising methodologies to address this need as they engage learners via emotion, narrative, and perspective-taking. As part of a research project evaluating using the humanities to teach end-of-life care, we designed a curriculum centered on small-group discussions of preassigned readings. To detail the implementation of and evaluate student responses to a novel humanities-based elective teaching end-of-life skills to second-year medical students in the interest of broader replicability. The authors planned the curriculum based on a needs assessment and their professional experience in humanities education. Students (n = 42) completed surveys after each session and cumulatively including Likert-scale and free-text items measuring responses to the materials and pedagogy. This analysis includes descriptive statistics and a formal qualitative analysis of written responses. Students overwhelmingly evaluated materials and discussions as valuable for their professional development and comfort, confidence, and anxiety about working with dying patients. Qualitatively, student-identified outcomes included increased knowledge about and comfort with end-of-life care, strong emotional reactions, opportunities for self-reflection, improved emotional understanding, practical skills, and envisioned value for future careers. Course materials contributed to these outcomes through their diversity in type and perspective, and course discussions created a safe space where students could direct the conversation and learn from peers. A humanities-based curriculum can be well-suited to educating preclinical medical students about end-of-life care.