Empowering Students to Reach the Margins: Compassion and Ethics Education in Medicine
Marianne P. Florian, PhD, MTS, MA, McGovern Medical School, UTHealth, Houston, TX, Institute for Spirituality and Health, Houston, TX; Charles E. Barber, PhD, MTS, Independent Scholar, Jackson, GA; Gioconda Mojica, MD, UTHealth, Houston, TX; and Jessica N. Wise, PhD, MPH, McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics, UTHealth, Houston, TX
As healthcare worker shortages have increased in the wake of historic global health crises and natural disasters, healthcare professionals and healthcare systems are pushed to their limits. In this context, it is important to focus not only on making medicine more inclusive and holistic but also on supporting doctors’ wellbeing and helping them cope with cycles of burnout. Compassion and ethics, with their connections to religious ideals and spiritual values, offer valuable tools for addressing both medical marginalization and professional wellbeing. Compassion and ethics prepare future physicians to extend their care to marginalized communities while building resilience in the face of suffering.
To empower medical students, we need to teach them about medical marginalization (knowledge), strengthen their desire to address the problem (compassion), and affirm their hope that change is possible (resilience). This panel discusses how compassion and ethics trainings prepare undergraduate medical students to address marginalization, both in communities and by reaching marginalized individuals. We begin by highlighting the serious impacts of marginalization among people excluded from religious communities and from evidence-based medicine. Then, we examine the strategies, goals, and results of medical school training in ethics and compassion. How can studying these topics and practicing these skills empower future physicians to reach those at the margins? Finally, we explore spiritual and religious histories connecting the sources of and solutions to medical marginalization.
The following panelists will present their research: Charles E. Barber, PhD, MTS will share findings based on interviews with Black men who have sex with men (MSM) who are also HIV positive. These men’s experiences connect their sense of religious rejection and existential peril with high-risk behaviors and healthcare avoidance. Such connections attest to the urgency of religious belonging as a social determinant of health. Next, Gioconda Mojica, MD will discuss how self-compassion training can reduce shame and build resilience among medical students. By including student instructors, this training also promotes professionalism and leadership. Jessica N. Wise, PhD, MPH will then discuss the design and impact of ethics electives that focus on the structural factors affecting health, helping students’ understand health inequity and reflect on their own ethical perspectives and responsibilities. Lastly, Marianne P. Florian, PhD, MTS, MA will explore Christian and Buddhist histories connected to medical marginalization and to the educational approaches discussed by the panelists.
To empower medical students, we need to teach them about medical marginalization (knowledge), strengthen their desire to address the problem (compassion), and affirm their hope that change is possible (resilience). This panel discusses how compassion and ethics trainings prepare undergraduate medical students to address marginalization, both in communities and by reaching marginalized individuals. We begin by highlighting the serious impacts of marginalization among people excluded from religious communities and from evidence-based medicine. Then, we examine the strategies, goals, and results of medical school training in ethics and compassion. How can studying these topics and practicing these skills empower future physicians to reach those at the margins? Finally, we explore spiritual and religious histories connecting the sources of and solutions to medical marginalization.
The following panelists will present their research: Charles E. Barber, PhD, MTS will share findings based on interviews with Black men who have sex with men (MSM) who are also HIV positive. These men’s experiences connect their sense of religious rejection and existential peril with high-risk behaviors and healthcare avoidance. Such connections attest to the urgency of religious belonging as a social determinant of health. Next, Gioconda Mojica, MD will discuss how self-compassion training can reduce shame and build resilience among medical students. By including student instructors, this training also promotes professionalism and leadership. Jessica N. Wise, PhD, MPH will then discuss the design and impact of ethics electives that focus on the structural factors affecting health, helping students’ understand health inequity and reflect on their own ethical perspectives and responsibilities. Lastly, Marianne P. Florian, PhD, MTS, MA will explore Christian and Buddhist histories connected to medical marginalization and to the educational approaches discussed by the panelists.