Qualitative Study of Preclinical Medical Student Reflections on Required Palliative Care Experience.

Background: Medical schools are increasingly incorporating palliative care (PC) experiences to promote knowledge about patient-centered care and improve primary PC skills of future physicians; however, best practices for doing so remain underdeveloped. As part of a longitudinal four-year medical school curriculum, all preclinical second-year medical students spend one half-day embedded in a PC team in an academic hospital or in a home setting.

Objective: To evaluate written reflections of preclinical medical students for themes and experience impact following a PC experience with an interdisciplinary clinical team.

Methods: Qualitative analysis was used to evaluate students' reflections written within one week of completing the palliative medicine experience. Conventional content analysis was used using NVivo statistical software. Authors inductively developed a codebook based on a small sample of reflections which was subsequently used for coding all reflections.

Results: 138 reflections were completed and included in this analysis. Five primary themes were identified: (1) introduction to the content and substance of PC as a field; (2) understanding PC as a collaborative effort that relies on an interdisciplinary team; (3) observation leading to deeper understanding of communication techniques; (4) understanding of systems-level considerations and barriers to care; and (5) early PC shadowing influences early professional identify consideration.

Conclusions: Students developed deeper understanding of PC, including communication skills and interdisciplinary collaboration, as well as insights about future professional identity formation. Findings highlight the value of incorporating a required PC experience for all preclinical medical students. Themes identify opportunities to support students in their professional growth.