Promoting self-awareness and reflection through an experiential mind-body skills course for first year medical students.
BACKGROUND
This research examines student evaluations of their experience and attitudes in an 11 week mind-body skills course for first year medical students.


OBJECTIVE
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.
Saunders
Pamela A
PA
Department of Neurology, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057, USA. saunderp@georgetown.edu
Tractenberg
Rochelle E
RE
Chaterji
Ranjana
R
Amri
Hakima
H
Harazduk
Nancy
N
Gordon
James S
JS
Lumpkin
Michael
M
Haramati
Aviad
A
D000328:Adult; D001364:Awareness; D000529:Complementary Therapies / Q000193:education; D004219:District of Columbia; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D019222:Mind-Body Relations, Metaphysical; D018794:Problem-Based Learning / Q000379:methods*; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012647:Self-Assessment; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000517:prevention & control; D013337:Students, Medical