title: Living with 'melanoma' … for a day: a phenomenological analysis of medical students' simulated experiences.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Despite the rising incidence of melanoma, medical students have progressively fewer opportunities to encounter patients with this important condition. Curricula tend to attach the greatest value to intellectual forms of learning. However, compared with intellectual learning, experiential learning affords students deep insights about a condition. Doctors who experience ill health are more empathic towards patients. However, opportunities to learn about cancer experientially are limited. Temporary transfer tattoos can simulate the ill health associated with melanoma. We reasoned that if doctors who have been sick are more empathic temporarily 'having' melanoma might have a similar effect.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To explore the impact of wearing a melanoma tattoo on medical students' understanding of patienthood and attitudes towards patients with melanoma.
  
  
  METHODS
  Ten fourth-year medical students were recruited to a simulation. They wore a melanoma tattoo for 24 h and listened to a patient's account of receiving their diagnosis. Data were captured using audio diaries and face-to-face interviews, transcribed and analysed phenomenologically using the template analysis method.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There were four themes: (i) melanoma simulation: opening up new experiences; (ii) drawing upon past experiences; (iii) a transformative introduction to patienthood; (iv) doctors in the making: seeing cancer patients in a new light.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  By means of a novel simulation, medical students were introduced to lived experiences of having a melanoma. Such an inexpensive simulation can prompt students to reflect critically on the empathetic care of such patients in the future.
authors.affiliation: Foundation Programme, Northern Ireland Deanery, Belfast, U.K.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Corr
authors.affiliation: Centre for Medical Education, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, U.K.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Roulston
authors.affiliation: School of Human and Health Sciences, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, U.K.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: King
authors.affiliation: Centre for Medical Education, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, U.K.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Dornan
authors.affiliation: School of Philosophy, University College Dublin, Ireland.|Program in Placebo Studies, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, U.S.A.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Blease
authors.affiliation: Centre for Medical Education, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, U.K.
authors.forename: G J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Gormley
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001294:Attitude to Health; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008545:Melanoma / Q000523:psychology*; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D000066908:Simulation Training; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology*; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology*; D013653:Tattooing; D055815:Young Adult