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"Sharing the impact of the disease": a workshop on suffering for medical students
1Carreg Wen Surgery, Blaenavon, Pontypool, UK.
Objectives:
: To investigate the attitudes of early clinical students to the concept of suffering and the work of Eric Cassell.
Design:
: Qualitative case study using group interviews and questionnaires.
Setting:
: A United Kingdom medical school.
Participants:
: Two whole-year cohorts of third-year medical students (n = 557).
Interventions:
: Group interviews involving 57 randomly selected students, with exploration of emergent themes using free text and Lickert scale questionnaires.
Results:
: Students engaged readily with the concept of suffering and were able to identify a patient they had encountered who was suffering. Barriers to student involvement with suffering were identified. Students saw engaging with patient suffering as a clinical skill. Many students saw the ideas of Eric Cassell as plausible, although few were convinced that relief of suffering should be the central goal of medicine.
Conclusions:
: The work of Eric Cassell formed the basis of a teaching intervention with medical students who identified engaging with suffering as a clinical skill.
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