Narrative medicine in clinical internship teaching practice

Jing Yuan; Xiangyang Zeng; Yan Cheng; Hua Lan; Ke Cao; Songshu Xiao

doi:10.1080/10872981.2023.2258000

Narrative medicine in clinical internship teaching practice

Med Educ Online. 2023 Dec;28(1):2258000. doi: 10.1080/10872981.2023.2258000. Epub 2023 Sep 18.

Authors

Jing Yuan¹, Xiangyang Zeng¹, Yan Cheng², Hua Lan^{1

3}, Ke Cao⁴, Songshu Xiao¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the Third Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, People's Republic of China.
² Department of Pharmacy, The Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China.
³ Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Changsha Central Hospital of University of South China, Changsha, China.
⁴ Department of Oncology, the Third Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, People's Republic of China.

Abstract

Objective: To explore the effect on empathy skills of integrating narrative medicine instruction into clinical internship undergraduate medical education.Methods: One hundred clinical undergraduate students who were transferred to gynecology and obstetrics in 2016 were selected as subjects and divided into two groups. The control group adopted the traditional practice teaching mode, while the experimental group adopted a narrative medicine integrated with traditional teaching mode. The impact of the narrative medicine course was evaluated using the Davis Empathy Scale, and the students' acceptance of the course was investigated using a self-developed questionnaire.Results: After completion of the rotation, the empathy scores of the experimental group were higher than those of the control group (p < 0.05). Students in the experimental group rated the integration of narrative medicine into the internship class highly, and most students thought that the narrative medicine course was of great benefit with respect to the humanistic quality of medical teaching.Conclusion: The application of narrative medicine teaching in the clinical practice teaching of obstetrics and gynecology promoted students to improve their empathy ability.

Keywords: Narrative medicine; clinical practice; medical education; medical humanities; obstetrics and gynecology.

MeSH terms

Education, Medical*
Education, Medical, Undergraduate*
Female
Humans
Internship and Residency*
Narrative Medicine*
Pregnancy
Students

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the Construction Project of the Graduate Teaching Case Base of Central South University (2022ALK032), the Graduate Education and Teaching Reform Project of Central South University (2022JGB064), the 14^th Five-year Plan of Educational Science in Hunan Province (ND213576), Hunan Postgraduate Teaching Platform Project (2019-39), Hunan Province Degree and Graduate Teaching Reform Research Project (Curriculum Ideological and Political Project) (2022JGSZ016), Central South University Graduate Course Ideological and Political Construction Project (2022YJSKS009), Central South University Education and TeachingReform Research Project (2023jy122).