EDUCATION RESEARCH POSTER PRESENTATION ABSTRACTS
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Saunders P, Chaterji R, Harazduk N, Gordon J, Amri H,
Lumpkin M, Haramati A.
Impact of mind body skills group on medical students:
a qualitative analysis of students' perceptions and attitudes.
Georgetown University Medical Center saunderp@georgetown.edu
PURPOSE: This paper reports on educational research
conducted at School of Medicine on medical students' perceptions
of their experience and attitudes during a Mind Body Medicine Skills
(MBS) course. The main hypothesis is that this MBS course will increase
student understanding of self-awareness and self-care by providing a
unique experiential and didactic introduction to Mind-Body Medicine.
The MBS course consists of an 11 week experiential curriculum that introduces
first year medical students to a variety of mind body techniques (e.g.,
eating and walking meditations, autogenics and biofeedback, guided imageries,
movement, and writing exercises) that promote self care, self awareness
and stress management.
METHOD: The data are 492 verbatim responses
to open-ended questions across three semesters in which the MBS course
was offered during 2002 Ð 2003. Students were asked to respond to 6
questions at the end of course. Questions include: What did this course
mean to you, if anything? Has the course helped you as a medical student
and as a person, if at all? Do you believe that it will contribute to
your work as a physician? Has it changed your attitude toward medicine
and healthcare? Has it changed your attitude toward medical school?
Has it changed your relationship with your classmates? These questions
probed students' attitudes about Mind-Body Medicine, Complementary and
Alternative Medicine, and their future as physicians using these approaches.
The methods involved a qualitative approach to examining the thematic
patterns in students' responses. Each response was entered into a qualitative
analysis program (NVivo). An initial set of themes were developed based
on all 492 responses. These themes were assessed by a team of coders
and any responses that did not fit the coding scheme were recoded based
on the team's evaluation of the coding categories. This process was
repeated until all responses were coded.
RESULTS: The content analysis revealed 5 central
themes: connections (relationships between students), self discovery
(greater awareness of abilities and weaknesses), stress management (using
MB skills in school and life), learning (mind-body skills and academic
improvement) and issues of medical education (contextualizing Mind Body
Medicine within medicine and perspectives on healthcare).
CONCLUSIONS: The analysis demonstrates that
students perceive that MBS groups play an important role in their medical
school experience to foster connections, facilitate self-awareness and
self discovery, and promote attitudinal maturation towards health care
and the field of medicine.
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