Burnout is a significant problem among medical students due to the stressful learning environment in medical school. Studies show that around 50% of medical students experience burnout, and that it progressively develops over the course of medical education. Students with burnout are less likely to hold altruistic views about physicians' responsibility to society. They are also less likely to foster empathy during medical care, as distress and well-being are related to medical student empathy. Mindfulness has also been shown to be helpful for fostering better emotion regulation in the face of stressors and better resilience in recovering from stress. Thus, based on previous literature, a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course administered to medical students will pose a promising way for medical students to address their distress and also enhance their ability to doctor in a compassionate, patient-centered way. This summer, we are enrolling medical students who have completed their first year in and MBSR course, and measuring their working memory ability and emotion regulation in response to stress. My hypothesis is that mindfulness is an effective tool for training resilience because it helps moderate stress and anxiety, which often times causes burnout in medical students. It needs to be in evidence based practice because previous research has clearly shown how beneficial it is in relieving stress.
Haleen, Heba,
"Evidence for mindfulness based resilience training in the medical curriculum"
(2016).
Summer Research Symposium.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.26300/tgs9-jp04
Each year, Brown University showcases the research of its undergraduates at the Summer Research Symposium. More than half of the student-researchers are UTRA recipients, while others receive funding from a variety of Brown-administered and national programs and fellowships and go …
