title: "Sharing the impact of the disease": a workshop on suffering for medical students.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  : To investigate the attitudes of early clinical students to the concept of suffering and the work of Eric Cassell.
  
  
  METHODS
  : Qualitative case study using group interviews and questionnaires.
  
  
  METHODS
  : A United Kingdom medical school.
  
  
  METHODS
  : Two whole-year cohorts of third-year medical students (n = 557).
  
  
  METHODS
  : Group interviews involving 57 randomly selected students, with exploration of emergent themes using free text and Lickert scale questionnaires.
  
  
  RESULTS
  : Students engaged readily with the concept of suffering and were able to identify a patient they had encountered who was suffering. Barriers to student involvement with suffering were identified. Students saw engaging with patient suffering as a clinical skill. Many students saw the ideas of Eric Cassell as plausible, although few were convinced that relief of suffering should be the central goal of medicine.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  : The work of Eric Cassell formed the basis of a teaching intervention with medical students who identified engaging with suffering as a clinical skill.
authors.affiliation: Carreg Wen Surgery, Blaenavon, Pontypool, UK.
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Lewis
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hawthorne
keywords: philosophy of medicine; qualitative case study; suffering; undergraduate medical education