scholarly journals Into the darkness: medical student essays on first experiences of the dying patient

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 293
Author(s):  
Hamish Wilson ◽  
Alexa Gilbert-Obrart
Keyword(s):  
Medical Student ◽  
Dying Patient

scholarly journals Simulation to improve medical student confidence and preparedness to care for the dying: a feasibility study

2019 ◽  
pp. bmjspcare-2019-001853 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Wells ◽  
Julia Montgomery ◽  
Andreas Hiersche
Keyword(s):  
Medical Student ◽  
Medical Students ◽  
End Of Life ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
End Of Life Care ◽  
Undergraduate Teaching ◽  
Life Care ◽  
Dying Patients ◽  
Medical Undergraduate ◽  
Dying Patient

BackgroundUndergraduate teaching currently fails to adequately prepare doctors to deliver ‘end-of-life’ care. Despite much evidence supporting simulation-based teaching, its use in medical undergraduate palliative and ‘end-of-life’ care curricula remain low.AimThis study assesses whether simulation can improve the confidence and preparedness of medical students to provide holistic care to dying patients and their families, from clinical assessment to symptom management, communication and care after death.MethodsSix fourth-year medical students undertook individual simulations involving a dying patient (high-fidelity simulator) and family member (actor). Intentional patient death occurred in four of the six scenarios (although unexpected by students). Pre-simulation/post-simulation thanatophobia questionnaires measured student attitudes towards providing care to dying patients. Thematic analysis of post-simulation focus group transcripts generated qualitative data regarding student preparedness, confidence and value of the simulations.ResultsThematic analysis revealed that students felt the simulations were realistic, and left them better prepared to care for dying patients. Students coveted the ‘safe’ exposure to dying patient scenarios afforded by the simulations. Observed post-simulation reduction in mean thanatophobia scores was not found to be statistically significant (p=0.07).ConclusionsResults suggest a feasible potential for simulations to influence undergraduate medical student teaching on the care of a dying patient and their family. We believe that this study adds to the limited body of literature exploring the value of simulation in improving the confidence and preparedness of medical students to provide ‘end-of-life’ care. Further research into the cost-effectiveness of simulation is required to further support its application in this setting.

scholarly journals Medical student anxiety in caring for dying patients and their family: a cross-sectional study

2021 ◽  
pp. bmjspcare-2021-003331
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Wells ◽  
Carrie Llewellyn ◽  
Andreas Hiersche ◽  
Ollie Minton ◽  
Juliet Wright
Keyword(s):  
Medical Student ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
First Year ◽  
Cross Sectional Survey ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Student Anxiety ◽  
Dying Patients ◽  
Student Age ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Dying Patient

ObjectivesTo investigate the level of medical student anxiety in caring for a dying patient and their family and identify influencing factors.MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional survey in a UK medical school to measure medical student anxiety using a validated Thanatophobia Scale questionnaire.ResultsIn total, 332 questionnaires were completed. Mean thanatophobia score was 19.5 (SD 7.78, range 7–49). Most respondents were female (67.4%) and did not have a previous undergraduate degree (56%). Median student age was 22 years (IQR 20–24). Year of study influenced anxiety level, with second year students displaying an increase in mean thanatophobia score of 6.088 (95% CI 3.778 to 8.398, p<0.001). No significant differences were observed between final year and first year thanatophobia scores. For each 1-year increase in student age, mean thanatophobia score reduced by −0.282 (95% CI −0.473 to −0.091, p=0.004). Degree status and gender identity did not significantly affect thanatophobia score.ConclusionA degree of thanatophobia exists among medical students, with no significant improvement observed by completion of training. Recognising this anxiety to care for the dying earlier in undergraduate curricula will give educators the opportunity to address students’ fears and concerns and better prepare our future doctors for their role in caring for our dying patients and their families.

The dying patient. When the focus must be changed

1971 ◽  
Vol 127 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-109
Author(s):  
W. H. Baltzell
Keyword(s):  
Dying Patient

Review of Continuing Care for the Dying Patient, Family, and Staff.

1987 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 286-287
Author(s):  
No authorship indicated
Keyword(s):  
Continuing Care ◽  
Dying Patient

How Much Psychology Does a Medical Student Need?

1994 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
pp. 630-631
Author(s):  
Danny Wedding
Keyword(s):  
Medical Student

Medical Student Sexual Health Knowledge Survey

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Warner ◽  
Samantha Carlson ◽  
Renee Crichlow ◽  
Michael W. Ross
Keyword(s):  
Medical Student ◽  
Sexual Health ◽  
Health Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Survey ◽  
Sexual Health Knowledge

Bureaucracy, Pedagogy, Surgery: Keats, Guy's, and the ‘Institution’ of Medicine

Romanticism ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-212
Author(s):  
James Robert Allard
Keyword(s):  
Medical Student ◽  
Medical Practice ◽  
The State

John Keats's time as a medical student provided much fodder for the imagination of readers of all persuasions. In particular, ‘Z’, in the fourth installment of the ‘Cockney School’ essays, took pains to ensure that readers knew of his time training to be an apothecary, working to frame Keats, first, as connected to the lowest branch of medical practice, and, second, as having failed as badly at that unworthy pursuit as he did at poetry. But what would ‘Z’, or any of his readers, have known about the training of an apothecary, about medical pedagogy, about the internal workings of the profession? As outsiders, what could they have known, beyond perception, conjecture, and opinion? And on what were those opinions based? This essay reads ‘Z’'s comments in the context of first-hand accounts of the state of contemporary medical pedagogy, seeking to account both for ‘Z’'s dismissal of Keats to ‘the shops’ and for the continuing fascination with his connections to medicine in these terms.

Passover Plots

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 201-222
Author(s):  
Richard G. Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Medical Student ◽  
Da Vinci ◽  
Popular Fiction ◽  
Divine Providence ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Modern Media ◽  
Human Actors ◽  
First Time ◽  
Foucault’S Pendulum

Various modern fictions, building upon the skeptical premises of biblical scholars, have claimed that the gospels covered up the real story about Jesus. Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code is one recent, popular example. While conspiracy theories may seem peculiar to modern media, the gospels have their own versions of hidden secrets. For Mark, e.g., Roman discourse about crucifixion obscures two secret plots in Jesus’ passion, which the gospel reveals: the religious leaders’ conspiracy to dispatch Jesus and the hidden divine program to sacrifice Jesus. Mark unveils these secret plots by minimizing the passion’s material details (the details of suffering would glorify Rome), substituting the Jewish leaders for the Romans as the important human actors, interpreting the whole as predicted by scripture and by Jesus, and bathing the whole in an irony that claims that the true reality is other than it seems. The resulting divine providence/conspiracy narrative dooms Jesus—and everyone else—before the story effectively begins. None of this would matter if secret plots and infinite books did not remain to make pawns or “phantoms of us all” (Borges). Thus, in Borges’ “The Gospel According to Mark,” an illiterate rancher family after hearing the gospel for the first time, read to them by a young medical student, crucifies the young man. Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum is less biblical but equally enthralled by conspiracies that consume their obsessive believers. Borges and Eco differ from Mark, from some scholarship, and from recent popular fiction, in their insistence that such conspiracy tales are not “true” or “divine,” but rather humans’ own self-destructive fictions. Therein lies a different kind of hope than Mark’s, a very human, if very fragile, hope.

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