Finding Meaning in Medicine: Pediatric Residents' Perspectives on Humanism

Pediatric Resident Perceptions of a Narrative Medicine Curriculum

Training residents to become humanistic physicians capable of empathy, compassionate communication, and holistic patient care is among our most important tasks as physician educators. Narrative medicine aims to foster those highly desirable characteristics, and previous studies have shown it to be successful in fostering self-reflection, emotional processing, and preventing burnout. We aimed to evaluate pediatric residents' perceptions of a novel narrative medicine curriculum. After the initiation of a longitudinal narrative medicine curriculum, focus groups were conducted with residents who participated in at least one narrative medicine session. The curriculum was viewed positively, and residents found the sessions to be helpful in developing empathy, offering a space for reflection, and introducing new perspectives. Challenges noted were perception of relevance, timing of sessions, and interpretation by non-native English-speaking residents. With attention to linguistics and thematic undertones, narrative medicine is a feasible, replicable, and accepted teaching modality for pediatric residents to foster empathy, process emotions, and participate in self-reflection.

Meaningful Connections: Exploring the Relationship Between Empathy and Professional Identity Formation

OBJECTIVE

To describe the literature on the connections between empathy and professional identity formation (PIF) in pharmacy and other health professions education. A PRISMA-Scoping Review methodology was used for this study. Searches were conducted in PubMed and CINAHL from 2010 to January 12, 2023, with English added as a limiter. Articles had to address empathy and PIF, whether implicitly or explicitly. "Theory talk" was modified and utilized with 6 levels of connectedness to assess article quality.

FINDINGS

A total of 419 articles were reviewed for inclusion into the study with a total of 45 articles being included. Seventeen (37.8 %) and 12 articles (26.7 %) included a definition for empathy and PIF, respectively. Thirty-eight articles (84.4 %) implicitly discussed a connection between PIF and empathy. Educational initiatives that fostered connections between empathy and PIF focused on classroom activities, clinical rotation activities, and assessments. Key elements to enhance empathy and PIF development across articles focused on mentorship, role models, and reflective practice, alongside intentional curricular integration. Similarly, barriers to empathy and PIF are multifaceted.

SUMMARY

Despite educational initiatives in the literature that attempt to foster connections between empathy and PIF in classroom activities, clinical rotation activities, and assessments, most connections are implicit, as opposed to explicit. This may be due to the multiple barriers, such as the hidden curriculum, which make the connection between empathy and PIF difficult. This area needs further research and development given the importance of empathy in all health care provider interactions.