A study based on third year students at Loyola University’s Chicago Stritch School of medicine says students at that University are attempting to cope with not becoming desensitized concerning patient death. The study also indicated that students were concerned about compassion and spiritual support systems for physicians treating dying patients.
According to the Study, the third-year students expressed the emotional struggle that they face as they balanced the needs of dying patients with those of the patient’s family and their own need to be professional “removed” from the situation.
The Study was published in the January issue of Academic Medicine, a peer reviewed journal and the study focused on the third year students. The study asked the students to complete an essay which spoke to their personal experience when caring for a dying patient. In the randomized study, the medical students focused on communication, professional and personal development, patient care and compassion and juxtaposed this alongside caring for a dying patient.
According to Mark Kuczewski, PhD and lead author/director of the Loyola University of Chicago Stritch School, “Medical students are very aware they are undergoing a socialization process by which they become desensitized to the difficult things they see every day in the hospital. They realize this is necessary to control their emotions and focus on caring for the patients. On the other hand, they are very concerned about becoming insensitive to the spiritual, emotional and personal needs of the patient”.
The students were given the assignment two months into their rotation and it was completed five months later. The essays were examined by a physician, medical school chaplain and bioethicist and using content-analysis (a communications analytic tool), the team was able to conduct comparative, independent analysis while examining themes and trends.
Outcomes included that disclosure of a prognosis of death to patients was problematic but students were also concerned about who delivered the information. Additionally, the 68 students discussed how doctors delivered the prognosis of death and the students also reported on how doctors avoided delivering the prognosis as well.
“Students reported no matter how well a physician communicated a prognosis, families and individual family members absorbed and digested the information in their own manner and at their own pace.”
The study also showed the students concern about compassionate communication and acknowledgement that the patient was an embodiment of the spiritual and physical. The study also indicated a need for physicians to be emotionally and spiritually supportive of the needs of the families.
