Table 5 Summary of qualitative themes: empathic understanding gained (as recorded in reflective essays)
From: Art-making in a family medicine clerkship: how does it affect medical student empathy?
Theme | Sub-theme | Example | Number of participants |
|---|---|---|---|
Self-awareness | general awareness | “Apart from learning about patients and the way to communicate with patients, I also understood more about myself.” | 5 |
recognizing own feelings | “They were scenes in my life that I had probably neglected… I learnt to examine my own emotion at the particular time in a more detailed manner.” | 3 | |
coping with feelings | “We need to strike a balance between the feelings, care and let go; otherwise we and the people surrounding us would be the victims of those feelings.” | 3 | |
realizing limitations | “I realized how inadequate I am in self-understanding…” | 4 | |
existential concerns | “the meaning of life and death issue. It’s such a huge topic for us students to think about, but still we got a few points of view on this session, some of which had never come to my mind before.” | 3 | |
Patient awareness | empathy | “put us into patients’ shoes,” | 10 |
holistic/patient-centered care | “not treating the disease, but more important is that, we are treating the patient himself.” | 12 | |
Understanding pain and suffering | awareness of presence | “Pain and suffering are two feelings that we all feared of sharing. Yet already as a medical student, I have experienced it at close intervals from my dealings with the sick and ill. I have kept it in, locked, ignored and neglected so I can continue my medical duties and tasks as expected by the society.” | 5 |
expanded view of pain and suffering | “I cannot appreciate all the pieces and put myself into the emotion described. I can only appreciate that pain and suffering do exist in many different forms.” | 3 | |
duality of pain and suffering | “what is most important it’s the unexpected ‘side effects’ come along, for instance, regaining family bonding.” | 3 | |
distinguish between physical pain and metal suffering | “we can explain all those pain through physiological pathway[s],… However, for the mental aspect, it is much more complicated and difficult to understand.” | 4 | |
Role of the doctor | alleviate emotional pain | “In addition to serving as ‘experts’ to provide curative treatment, doctors could also serve as someone who has witnessed multiple similar events to offer support, counseling and a pair of listening ears, which form an integral part of patient management and disease outcome.” | 4 |
alleviate physical pain | “When we encounter different patient, we can give different kinds of medication to relieve their symptoms” | 1 | |
contribute to pain | “I told her about the results. She was quite shocked” | 1 |