Supporting Health Care Professions Learners Experiencing Grief Using the TEARS Framework: A Workshop for...

Health care professionals experience grief reactions as part of their work, yet education in processing these experiences is limited. Learners are particularly vulnerable, as they are known to experience strong emotional reactions and often lack tools or space to process difficult experiences. To address this gap, we developed a novel workshop introducing a structured approach to help educators support learners experiencing grief.

We conducted a 1-hour virtual workshop at 2 pediatric institutions for interprofessional health professions educators. Facilitators introduced the Turn Inward, Explore, Acknowledge, Resources, and Support (TEARS) framework, offering strategies for educators supporting learner grief. We assessed participant comfort with the framework using Likert scales, anticipated behavior change, and framework utilization at 3 months using anonymous post- and longitudinal follow-up surveys.

A total of 121 educators participated. Postsession, 80% of respondents committed to changing their teaching practices, and 64% felt more confident supporting grieving learners. At 3-month follow-up, 86% reported using at least 1 TEARS component, most commonly "turning inward" and "acknowledging." Time constraints and lack of applicable incidents were the most cited barriers.

Health care professional grief is unique, is underdiscussed, and presents a critical educational opportunity to help learners develop skills for grief processing, which may ultimately promote professional sustainability. Findings from implementing this novel workshop suggest increased comfort, increased intentions to change behavior, and more frequent application of the TEARS framework. Expanding this work to additional contexts and assessing its impact on learners are key next steps in advancing health professions grief processing education.