Impact of a Home Hospice Visit Program on Third-Year Medical Students: A qualitative analysis of student reflections

This study evaluates the impact of an interprofessional home hospice visit (HHV) on third-year medical students' attitudes toward, and understanding of, end-of-life care and the visit's effect on students' views of their emerging professional roles and identities.

All third-year medical students at Stony Brook School of Medicine in Stony Brook, New York, USA, participated in an HHV. A didactic session preceded the HHV. Subsequently, students were required to submit a piece of reflective writing detailing the impact of the visit. We conducted a qualitative analysis of a random sample drawn from the 467 submitted reflections.

Six themes emerged from the student reflections: three were related to the students' direct observations during the HHV, and three were related to the reflective learning of the students based on their HHV experience.

The qualitative analysis of the reflective writings showed that the students gained a deep appreciation of the human identity of hospice patients and a humanistic understanding of their own role as future physicians.