Promoting self-awareness and reflection through an experiential Mind-Body Skills course for first year medical students

Abstract

Background: This research examines student evaluations of their experience and attitudes in an 11 week mind-body skills course for first year medical students.

Aims: The aim is to understand the impact of this course on students’ self-awareness, self-reflection, and self-care as part of their medical education experience.

Methods: This study uses a qualitative content analysis approach to data analysis. The data are 492 verbatim responses from 82 students to six open-ended questions about the students' experiences and attitudes after a mind-body skills course. These questions queried students’ attitudes about mind-body medicine, complementary medicine, and their future as physicians using these approaches.

Results: The data revealed five central themes in students’ responses: connections, self discovery, stress relief, learning, and medical education.

Conclusions: Mind-body skills groups represent an experiential approach to teaching mind-body techniques that can enable students to achieve self-awareness and self-reflection in order to engage in self-care and to gain exposure to mind-body medicine while in medical school.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pamela A. Saunders

Dr. PAMELA A. SAUNDERS is an Assistant Professor in the Neurology Department at Georgetown University School of Medicine. Her research interests include communication, aging, and Alzheimer's disease. She has authored several articles on doctor/older patient communication. Currently, she is implementing curriculum with medical students about how to communicate with older patients.

Rochelle E. Tractenberg

Dr. ROCHELLE E. TRACTENBERG is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Neurology, Biostatistics, and Psychiatry at Georgetown University School of Medicine. Her research interests include teaching and learning in post-baccalaureate education. She is the Director of Curriculum for a federally-funded Clinical Research Education program at Georgetown.

Ranjana Chaterji

RANJANA CHATERJI received her M.S. in Physiology and Biophysics from Georgetown University and a B.S. in Biology from The Pennsylvania State University. She was employed by GUSOM as a Project Assistant for the CAM Educational Initiative for two years. Her contribution to the Initiative was developing an attitude assessment for the Mind-Body Medicine Program. In addition to data collection and survey design, she presented a poster and oral presentation at the AAMC Research In Medical Education Conference in 2003.

Hakima Amri

Dr. HAKIMA AMRI is Assistant Professor in the Physiology and Biophysics Departement at Georgetown University Medical Center; She is the Director of the physiology/complementary and alternative medicine Master's program. Her research focuses on steroid metabolism in health and disease and the mechanisms of action of herbal products. Her research is funded by grants from NIH and the Samueli Institute.

Nancy Harazduk

NANCY HARAZDUK is an Adjunct Assistant Professor and the Director of the Mind-Body Medicine Program at Georgetown University School of Medicine. To integrate Mind-Body Medicine into the medical school curriculum, she conducts Mind-Body Medicine classes for first, second and third year medical students. As a presenter, facilitator and supervisor, Ms Harazduk has trained many health care professionals in Mind-Body Medicine. She maintains a psychotherapy practice specializing in Mind-Body Medicine therapies in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

James S. Gordon

JAMES S. GORDON, MD, is the Founder and Director of The Center for Mind-Body Medicine in Washington D.C. and is a Clinical Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Family Medicine at the Georgetown University School of Medicine. He and his colleagues developed the model of psychological self-care and self-expression, mind-body skills and group support that is described in this study and have been using it for 13 years with people with chronic illness and war traumatized populations in Bosnia, Kosovo Israel and Gaza.

Michael Lumpkin

MICHAEL LUMPKIN teaches both medical students and lay audiences about all aspects of euroendicronology, neuroimmunology, stress and their associated disease states. His physiology laboratory primarily conducts studies in examining the regulatory relationships between the brain, endocrine glands, and the immune cells of the body, examining how stress or stressors disrupt the brain hormone systems that govern sexuality, growth, metabolism, and immunity, thereby causing chronic disease. He has extended these scientific investigations into understanding how certain complementary medications and mind-body techniques reduce stress and improve the hormonal and immune status of the body. Dr. Lumpkin also discovered and patented the use of a peptide hormone receptor binding compound to block the damaging effects of the HIV/AIDS virus on nerve cells in the hypothalamus of the brain and on cells of the pituitary gland.

Aviad Haramati

AVIAD HARAMATI, Ph.D. is Professor and Director of Education in the Departments of Physiology & Biophysics and Medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine. His research interests focus on two main areas: the regulation of renal and electrolyte physiology during growth; and the cardiovascular-renal-endocrine regulation of volume homeostasis in heart failure. Dr. Haramati was the principal investigator of a $ 1.7 million NIH grant that is funding a broad educational initiative aimed at incorporating complementary, alternative (CAM) and integrative medicine into the 4-year medical curriculum at Georgetown.