‘Involve me and I learn’: an experiential teaching approach to improve dyspnea awareness in medical residents

ABSTRACT

Background

Dyspnea is a frightening and debilitating experience. It attracts less attention than pain (‘dyspnea invisibility’), possibly because of its non-universal nature. We tested the impact of self-induced experimental dyspnea on medical residents.

Materials and Methods

During a teaching session following the principles of experiential learning, emergency medicine residents were taught about dyspnea theoretically, observed experimental dyspnea in their teacher, and personally experienced self-induced dyspnea. The corresponding psychophysiological reactions were described. Immediate and 1-year evaluations were conducted to assess course satisfaction (overall 0–20 grade) and the effect on the understanding of what dyspnea represents for patients.

Results

Overall, 55 emergency medicine residents participated in the study (26 men, median age 26 years). They were moderately satisfied with previous dyspnea teaching (6 [5–7] on a 0–10 numerical rating scale [NRS]) and expressed a desire for an improvement in the teaching (8 [7–9]). Immediately after the course they reported improved understanding of patients’ experience (7 [6–8]), which persisted at 1 year (8 [7–9], 28 respondents). Overall course grade was 17/20 [15–18], and there were significant correlations with experimental dyspnea ratings (intensity: r = 0.318 [0.001–0.576], p = 0.043; unpleasantness: r = 0.492 [0.208–0.699], p = 0.001). In multivariate analysis, the only factor independently associated with the overall course grade was ‘experiential understanding’ (the experimental dyspnea-related improvement in the understanding of dyspneic patients’ experience). A separate similar experiment conducted in 50 respiratory medicine residents yielded identical results.

Conclusions

This study suggests that, in advanced medical residents, the personal discovery of dyspnea can have a positive impact on the understanding of what dyspnea represents for patients. This could help fight dyspnea invisibility.

KEYWORDS:

• Experiential learning
• dyspnea
• experimental dyspnea
• personal experience
• medical trainees
• medical residents
• symptoms experience
• respiratory suffering
• empathy enhancing

Availability of data and materials

The datasets analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Disclosure statement

Maxens Decavèle reports personal fees (for congress registration) from ISIS Medical.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The study was approved by the university ethical committee (Comité d’Éthique de la Recherche, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France, # CER 2020-2). Oral information about the study was given to patients or their families prior enrolment.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10872981.2022.2133588

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.