Broadening Medical Students’ Exposure to the Range of Illness Experiences

A Pilot Curriculum Focused on Depression Education

Bibliographic Data

ID21612394
AuthorsNancy Pandhi (0000-0002-0059-801X, is associate professor, Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque, New Mexico., corresponding author), Martha Gaines (University of Wisconsin Law School), Martha E Gaines (Twitter (United States)), David Deci (is associate professor, Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, Wisconsin.), David M Deci (Twitter (United States)), Mark Schlesinger (0000-0002-7142-8667, is professor of public health and chair, Department of Health Policy and Management, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Connecticut.), Cecilia Culp (is outreach specialist, University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, Madison, Wisconsin.), Zaher Karp (is health care analytics specialist, healthfinch, Madison, Wisconsin.), Christie Legler (is department coordinator, Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, Wisconsin.), R Grob (0000-0002-1017-4536, Twitter (United States))
Year2020
Volume95
Issue1
Pages72-76
Publication date2020-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAcademic Medicine (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1040-2446 • E-ISSN: 1938-808X
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1097/acm.0000000000002893
PMID31348061
OpenAlexW2965422113
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited8

PROBLEM: Exposing medical students to a broad range of illness experiences is crucial for teaching them to practice patient-centered care, but students often have limited interaction with patients with diverse illness presentations. APPROACH: The authors developed, implemented, and evaluated a self-directed online curriculum followed by a small-group discussion focused on depression education. The curriculum was based on a module created using the Database of Individual Patients' Experiences methodology. Findings from 40 interviews with young adults across the United States about their diverse experiences with depression were summarized online, and the summaries were illustrated by video, audio, and text clips. From August 2016 to April 2017, third-year students completed either this online curriculum and the usual clerkship curriculum or just the usual clerkship curriculum. These intervention and control groups completed pre- and postsurveys. OUTCOMES: Students in the intervention group reported that the online curriculum influenced their thinking about depression (51/56) nearly as often as they reported that seeing patients in clinic did (53/56). They also reported greater decreases in personal stigmatizing attitudes toward depression than did students in the control group as measured by the Depression Stigma Scale (5.75-4.02, intervention; 6.50-5.65, control; P = .004). In open-ended responses, students in the intervention group were 13 times more likely to describe key lessons from the curriculum that reflected patient heterogeneity. NEXT STEPS: Future collaborations include implementing and evaluating this curriculum at other medical schools and developing additional versions based on other illness experiences

Curriculum · Family medicine · Medical education · Pedagogy · Psychiatry · Empathy and Medical Education · Healthcare professionals’ stress and burnout · Medicine · Mental Health Treatment and Access · Nursing · Psychology

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