Changing the Curriculum: How Adding a Narrative Assignment Increased Empathy and Connection with People Unlike Ourselves

From the 4/9/2021 newsletter

Perspective/Opinion

Changing the Curriculum: How Adding a Narrative Assignment Increased Empathy and Connection with People Unlike Ourselves

James Warpinski, MD – MCW-Green Bay

Dr. Warpinski’s M2 course brings medical students into contact with people and groups with whom they might never have before interacted. By adding a narrative assignment, students found new and remarkable connections …

I am the course director for an M2 Course on Continuous Professional Development at MCW-Green Bay. Through personal experience, I have found narrative medicine very helpful in improving my understanding of the individual patients. Writing sharpened my observation skills and forced me to pay closer attention to the nuances of the patient’s words, dress, and actions. 

Our course addresses the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to improve the health care experience of older adults, persons with disabilities, and those from non-majority groups. In earlier years, these topics were covered with lectures and slide presentations provided by a professional representative of these groups. This approach strengthened the students’ knowledge but didn’t necessarily impact their attitudes or skills. 

To counteract this, the curriculum needed to change. Preparation for the session covered much of the session’s information and challenged the students to consider potential biases and attitudes. The professional speaker’s remarks were shortened and individual members of the patient groups were recruited. The sessions became highly interactive with guests and small groups of students having face to face conversations. The guests shared deeply personal details of their lived experiences with providers and the health care system. Students were then required to submit a short reflective writing piece based on one of the course sessions.

This kind of writing comes more naturally to some students than others, but each essay offers the opportunity for the student to describe learning something new about themselves or their patients. Some students described being moved to tears by the experience of meeting these individuals face to face or how the experience challenged long-held beliefs about these patient groups. Several wrote about how these patients helped them better understand their own family members with disabilities. A few students wrote poems capturing some detail of the session while others reflected on the nature of the physician-patient relationship. 

Regardless of the specific form of their reflection, the students are able to see and hear their patients in deeper ways, and learn about themselves in the process.

James R Warpinski, MD is an Adjunct Assistant Professor and CPD course director at MCW-Green Bay.