Journal of Palliative Care & Medicine
Open Access

Research Article

Qualitative Analysis of Third Year Medical Students Reflections on Loss

Department of Medicine, The Glennan Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology, Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk, Virginia

*Corresponding Author:

Deborah Morris, MD, MHS
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Department of Medicine
The Glennan Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology
Eastern Virginia Medical School, 825 Fairfax Ave
Suite 201, Norfolk, VA-23507-2007, Virginia, USA
Tel: 757-446-7040
E-mail: morris01@evms.edu

Received date: October 21, 2016; Accepted date: November 08, 2016; Published date: November 12, 2016

Citation: Morris D, Mazzurco L, Kannarkat M, Galicia-Castillo M (2016) Qualitative Analysis of Third Year Medical Student’s Reflections on Loss. J Palliat Care Med 6:288. doi:10.4172/2165-7386.1000288

Copyright: © 2016 Morris D. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Medical students face professional experiences of death and loss during their formative training years. Personal experiences of death and loss are unique to each individual student. Surprisingly little is known about how medical students conceptualize loss or death. We sought to explore the responses of third year medical students to a selfreflection exercise focused on loss. We conducted a qualitative analysis of 127 third year medical school students responses to identify common and uncommon themes and language used by medical students to discuss and conceptualize loss. These findings may allow educators to tailor education programs on end of life care and mindfulness in a real and relevant manner. In addition, the wide breadth of student perspectives will inform appropriate support and resources required as physicians-in-training face loss during their training.

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