Mens Sana In Corpore Sano – A Pilot Course In Mind Body Medicine For Undergraduate Medical Students
Authors: Resuehr David , Cotlin Laura T , Galin Shawn F 
Published: November 2023

OBJECTIVES

The rigors of medical school can take a big toll on student's mental health. Loss of compassion and generalized burnout are dangers facing the aspiring medical practitioner early on in their career. Practicing mindfulness can prevent the encountered compassion fatigue and burnout by making students more self‐aware and managing stress by engaging in regular self‐care activities. Our overall goal was to design a Mind Body Medicine (MBM) course that would help students to learn to appreciate their capacity for self‐awareness and self‐care. By learning the power of self‐care, students can learn to balance the strain, stress and pressure due to the rigors of medical school and attempt to maintain a healthy personal and professional life.

METHODS

Prior to the course described, all instructors participated in the Institute for Integrative Health's faculty training program entitled; Educating for Enhanced Self‐awareness and Self‐care: An Experiential Faculty Training Program in Mind‐Body Medicine, offered through Georgetown University. This program selects participants from various academic and healthcare institutions (across the globe) and teaches them, through experiences, the fundamentals of mind‐body medicine techniques. Once trained, we created a co‐enrolled elective at UAB, wherein we took students through a series of similar exercises learned at the MBM training program in weekly, 2‐hr sessions throughout the spring semester of 2016. Students were introduced to mind‐body skills and had the opportunity to practice and learn the theory behind these approaches, which include relaxation, meditation, guided imagery, biofeedback, art, music and movement (e.g. yoga and dance). These methods are among the best known and most widely used of the complementary, alternative, and integrative approaches to healthcare.

RESULTS

Aggregate course evaluations were extremely positive. All students (n=12) rated the course with the highest marks and would recommend it to fellow students. Some students also felt that participation in the workshop helped them to promote lasting mechanisms for coping with stress. It was found that the course provided an active, safe and encouraging learning environment that fostered self‐awareness and self‐care. 90% of the participants felt that they had a greater appreciation for the relevance of this topic to their profession and felt more prepared to practice skills in the field. Student comments about the course included, “allowed me to develop long‐term stress management skills and ways to release tension in my life” and “helped give us strategies to manage stress, use these practices in our daily lives, and also share them with others in the medical and healthcare professions community”.

CONCLUSIONS

The key feature to reaping benefit from mind body medicine practice is an open minded individual. If approached with an open mind and heart, most participants will feel there is great benefit from practicing mindfulness on a regular basis. Some issues remain to be considered though when implementing instruction of this material in medical school. For example: Should teaching mindfulness be a regular/core component in the medical school curriculum and if so, when would be the most appropriate time to start? Also, we need to consider what format works best as this may differ among individuals? Lastly, how can the skills learned be maintained longitudinally, as well as, be propagated to the larger community?