Foreign bodies: Is it feasible to develop tolerance for ambiguity among medical students through Equine-Facilitated learning?

Abstract

Intolerance of ambiguity among medical students is associated with negative attitudes towards psychosocially complex patients. In this paper, the authors evaluated the feasibility of a 3.5-hour workshop aimed at fostering tolerance for ambiguity in medical students through semi-structured interactions with horses that functioned as experiential surrogates for ambiguity. Among 26 first-year medical students who participated in the feasibility assessment, an overwhelming majority rated the workshop as academically valuable and recommended that it be offered again in the future. After feasibility was established, an additional group of 7 first-year medical students and 5 fourth-year students completed Budner’s Tolerance of Ambiguity scale before and after the workshop to provide preliminary data on its effectiveness. The post-workshop mean scores on the Budner scale were lower than pre-workshop mean scores, suggesting that students developed greater tolerance for ambiguity following the workshop. This difference was statistically significant among the first-year students, but not among the fourth-year students. Our findings demonstrate that the equine-facilitated workshop is feasible and can potentially help medical students develop greater tolerance for ambiguity.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the staff at the Royal Oaks Stable and the Office of Medical Education at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kevin T. Liou

Kevin T. Liou, MD, is Fellow of Integrative Medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Daniel S. Jamorabo

Daniel S. Jamorabo, MD, is Fellow of Gastroenterology at New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital.

Rabih M. Geha

Rabih M. Geha, MD, is Assistant Professor of Medicine at University of California—San Francisco.

Constance M. Crawford

Constance M. Crawford, MFA, is Adjunct Lecturer in Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies at Brown University.

Paul George

Paul George, MD, MHPE, is Associate Dean for Medical Education at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.

Fred J. Schiffman

Fred J. Schiffman, MD, is Vice Chair of Medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.