The International Journal of Whole Person Care
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Looking Beyond the Façade: A Whole Person Perspective of Suicidal Ideation
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On Teaching the Sum While Paying Attention to the Parts: Whole Person Care through Ethnography in Medical Education
Get PDFObjective—This article provides a reflection on medical teaching opportunities for whole person care based on our experiences mentoring 2nd-year medical students through an Ethnography Practicum at a Canadian university. Background—The Ethnography Practicum is a new addition to the Family Medicine Transition to Clinical Practice (TCP) curriculum introduced in the second year of medical school at McGill University. It involves 30 hours of instruction (6 hours in lectures with an instructor, and 24 hours in small-group tutorials with the authors), and 9 hours of fieldwork observations in various community health settings across Montreal, QC. The primary aims of the Practicum converge with those of the TCP generally in two important ways: to inculcate in students the concepts of patient centered care, and to promote family medicine as both an academic discipline and career option. Results and Discussion— Our experiences illustrate two tensions that shape students’ expectations and experiences throughout their involvement in the Practicum and, in turn, highlight the implications for teaching whole-person care. First, ethnography as a combination of different methods has itself been the locus of tensions between positivist and critical traditions in the three last decades. Second, the Practicum is situated precisely at the crossroads of key moments on the professional identity formation continuum for our students. Such a crossroads is disruptive to the status quo of medical traineeship characteristic of the first two years in medical school, and thus reorients professional identity formation. The above tensions reveal how ethnography is not only a revered research tradition in the humanities, but can also be a conduit to whole person care-inspired clinical practice.Conclusion—As instructors and mentors involved in this Ethnography Practicum, we are continually forging a new relevance for organizational ethnography in medical training, where medical students can reflect and act on competencies beyond clinical ones. The Practicum provides a space for students to wrestle with alternative epistemologies to understanding the social world in which medicine is embedded. We lastly provide pragmatic ways to better address these tensions in an effort to support students as they proceed through the (multifaceted) development of their professional identities as future physicians
Transformative Learning as the Basis for Teaching Healing
Get PDFThe author describes the nature of transformative education, and highlights the potential importance of its implementation in creating physician-healers and propagating whole person care. The author proposes that teaching courses in healing are integral to the professional identity formation of “doctors as healers”. The teaching of Healing in workshop format for medical students is used as a template to suggest innovative teaching models (after Mezirow, Boyd and Myers, Daloz and Dirkx) which may be used to engender personal transformation in doctors and medical students, many of whom are trained as applied scientists in health
Finding My Voice in Residency: Reflections on Integrative Family Medicine
Get PDFThe author discusses how self awareness and healing play a key role within the evolving field of integrative family medicine
Pilgrims together: leveraging community partnerships to enhance workplace resilience
Get PDFMany of today’s healthcare personnel find themselves in a double-bind. The question is: How to remain connected, caring and compassionate with patients, while mitigating the impact of chronic workplace stress? Mindfulness is emerging as a means for addressing this dilemma as it has the potential to both reduce workplace stress and boost employee resilience, while enhancing the patient experience. This article describes the development of a unique collaboration between local hospitals, primary care teams and a university, aimed at bringing mindfulness to life in healthcare. This is a conventional story of program development and evaluation, as well as an unconventional story of personal discovery, community-building, and organizational transformation. Each section of the paper highlights a critical success factor that we have uncovered in our journey, and poses a series of questions for contemplation. This paper aims to fill a gap in the literature by describing the key ingredients for developing and sustaining a community-wide collaboration aimed at integrating mindfulness into the healthcare system.
Achieving Person-centered Care: The Need for Multiple Strategies
No full textBackground: Evidence from patient satisfaction surveys, needs assessments, and stakeholder forums provide a clear picture that cancer patients are not receiving the full range of supportive care services that could be of benefit to them. The cancer system needs to undergo a shift toward person-centered care. Such a cultural shift requires concerted effort and multiple strategies to be successful.Objective: The purpose of the Cancer Journey Action Group of the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer is to provide leadership to achieve person-centered care in the Canadian cancer care system.Methods: The Cancer Journey Action Group has developed and implemented several initiatives to demonstrate how person-centered care can be achieved. The initiatives include programs in screening for distress (6th vital sign), patient navigation, on-line support groups, survivorship care plans projects, cancer transition education, and palliative care/end-of-life education. Tools to support this work have been designed including evidence-based practice guidelines, algorithms, and on-line education modules. Evaluation has focused on program uptake, educational effectiveness, inter-professional teamwork and patient satisfaction.Results: All initiatives have been evaluated by patients/survivors as helpful. Issues of importance to patients/survivors are the focus of conversations with, and assessments by, health care professionals. Critical success factors across the respective programs for achieving person-centered care include clarity of a shared vision, leadership, persistent and concerted effort, and consistent messaging in communications.Conclusions: Demonstration projects undertaken for each topic area have provided an excellent opportunity to learn about best practices to implement the respective approaches. Guiding principles for implementation and relevant tools/resources have been developed as a result. Although progress toward person-centered care is evident, intentional and concerted efforts are necessary to sustain momentum of these efforts in routine clinical practice
Attitudinal Changes of Health Sciences Students Participating in an Interprofessional Education (IPE) Course Enriched with Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) Education and CAM Fair – A Two Year Study
No full textObjectives: Whole person care is ideally provided by a high functioning team, knowledgeable about all the therapies a patient has available to them (conventional or complementary), who coordinates efforts to efficiently meet all of a patient’s health care needs. Therefore, health sciences students at Canadian universities require team skills, and basic knowledge about complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). This project evaluates the attitudinal changes of health sciences students participating in a teaching intervention combining interprofessional education (IPE) and complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) education.Methods: At our university, “IntD410 Interprofessional Health Team Development” is a mandatory 10-week, 30-hour IPE course for all undergraduate health sciences students including medicine, nursing, pharmacy, physical therapy, and occupational therapy. The CAM-stream was developed by adding: (i) several didactic lectures; (ii) large group learning provided by CAM providers (i.e. Qi Gong, Mindfulness Meditation); (iii) small group work solving discovery-style cases; and (iv) the CAM Fair, providing one-on-one interactions with CAM providers. The CAM-stream was offered in 2012 (N=71) and 2013(N=120). Quantitative data was collected via pre/post validated questionnaires testing student attitudes towards CAM, interprofessional learning, and collaboration. Qualitative feedback was collected via reflective assignments and course evaluations.Results: Quantitative assessment revealed that the CAM-stream’s CAM beliefs increased, as did their recognition of the need for interprofessional learning. Qualitatively, initial reflections revealed that many students did not know what each other’s professions entailed, and they had misconceptions about CAM. Final reflections revealed the students felt more comfortable evaluating CAM practices, and recognized the value in collaboration. The CAM Fair was cited as the most impactful part of the curriculum.Conclusions: IPE and CAM education are urgently needed in Canadian universities to overcome biases and misconceptions, to develop team skills, and to provide coordinated whole person care. They are effectively taught concurrently
'Flowers Will Bloom': Assessing Support for Survivors of Japan's 3/11 Disaster through the Charity Song
No full textObjective: NHK, Japan’s public broadcast network, produced a theme song in March 2012 to promote public support for survivors of the 3/11 disaster of 2011. The objective of this study is to evaluate how and to what extent this charity song Hana wa Saku (“Flowers Will Bloom”) has contributed to assisting survivors of the disaster.Methods: First, the song’s characteristics are considered in two categories, (1) the way the original Japanese recording was conducted, and (2) the song itself. Then, the effects on the survivors are assessed through analyzing the actual ways the song was performed and their repercussions covered by the media.Results: (1) Along with the composer and the lyricist, all singers (thirty-six celebrities) of the original Japanese recording had strong personal links to the region affected by the disaster. In the video-clip performance, each singer relays a phrase of the song, holding a gerbera daisy instead of a baton. This performance has left a lasting impression of connectedness specifically between the survivors and the victims.(2) According to lyricist IWAI Shunji, the song’s words represent “a message from those who lost their lives to the people they left behind.” Repeatedly listening to the fictional messages of their loved ones in heaven, through the voices of the living people trying to provide comfort, have particularly helped young survivors bounce back from their sufferings.Conclusion: Responding to NHK’s call, more than 10,000 people have posted their amateur performances of the song on the official website by May 2013. All royalties and other proceeds of the song are being donated for recovery efforts for the affected region (28,907,109 yen as of March 2013). Findings demonstrate that, despite differences in its impact among survivors, this charity song can be an effective and accessible means to foster public support for the survivors