Experiential learning in disaster psychiatry

BACKGROUND: Disaster settings pose substantial challenges to health-care delivery while simultaneously offering distinctive experiential learning opportunities for medical students. Exploring how students reflect on participation in psychiatric and mental health care during disasters may provide insight into the developmental dimensions of medical education, including clinical reasoning, relational practice, and professional identity formation. METHODS: This qualitative study analyzed written reflective narratives from sixteen medical students (eleven fourth-year and five sixth-year) from a single medical school who participated in supervised psychiatric and mental health care during a flood-related disaster response in southern Thailand. Data were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. Participants were anonymized using identifiers (P1-P16). RESULTS: Participants described disaster-based learning as emotionally demanding and professionally significant. Reflections emphasized the importance of addressing basic needs, including safety, shelter, food security, and access to medication, as foundational to mental health care in crisis settings. Through observing psychiatric faculty, students identified attentive listening and regulated empathy as core clinical competencies. They described a shift toward holistic, patient-centered perspectives incorporating patients' life histories and family contexts. Participants also observed resilience enacted within families and communities, where social connectedness and shared caregiving appeared to support meaning-making amid adversity. These experiences were associated with evolving understandings of professional responsibility and, for some students, reflection on personal values. CONCLUSIONS: Participation in disaster-related psychiatric and mental health care appeared to function as an integrative learning context. Disaster settings supported reflection on systems-oriented clinical reasoning, empathy as professional practice, holistic care, and professional identity development. When accompanied by supervision and structured reflection, such experiential learning may contribute to integrative development across cognitive, relational, and ethical dimensions of practice.

Empathy · Experiential knowledge · Experiential learning · Mental health · Psychological resilience · Qualitative research · Reflective Practice · Thematic analysis · Disaster Response and Management · Healthcare professionals’ stress and burnout · Innovations in Medical Education