Medical Humanities Commons^™

The Silence Of Mitotic Figures, Hope K. Haefner Md

Patient Experience Journal

A career in medicine is guided by the patients you treat and those who have taught you to treat these individuals. Communication is of utmost importance in all aspects of healthcare. However, there are times when communication can be difficult. This story takes you through a physician’s experience that led to a career in women’s healthcare, reflecting on the silence that prevailed as her journey began.

Experience Framework

This article is associated with the Staff & Provider Engagement lens of The Beryl Institute Experience Framework (https://theberylinstitute.org/experience-framework/).

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Medicine And Kindness, A Glorious Concurrence?, Araya Gautam

Patient Experience Journal

This article unfolds the journey of a 28-year-old junior doctor entangled in the throes of a pernicious anemia diagnosis during her travels abroad, a scenario exacerbated by the grip of a COVID-19 lockdown. Adrift without medical insurance and distant from her family, she found herself under the care of a compassionate on-call resident, emphasizing the crucial role of kindness and compassion in her predicament. Her treatment regimen encompassed a series of CBC tests meticulously tracking cobalamin and ferritin levels, complemented by extensive examinations for iron deficiency and a regimen of vital vitamin B12 injections, all carried out under vigilant scrutiny …

The Case For Patient-Reported Pleasure, Preston Long, Tanja Stamm

Patient Experience Journal

Pleasure is a cornerstone of human behavior. Its lack of consideration in the medical sciences has been to the detriment of all patients. The process of including pleasure as a medical outcome has multiple beginnings. A health-related pleasure scale must be developed for clinical purposes and original research must be conducted to establish the added value of measuring pleasure. Treatment comparisons, prediction models for recovery, side-effect investigations, and more may benefit from the collection of patient-reported pleasure. Furthermore, simply inquiring about a patient’s pleasure may serve as a positive intervention by giving them permission to discuss more than the illness …

Part Of The Team: Effecting Change And Sharing Power In Healthcare Settings, Jessica Stanier, Rachel Purtell, Dave Thomas, William Murray

Patient Experience Journal

In 2019, we, as a group of patients and researchers, were invited to rethink how the executive board received and responded to patient stories at a specific NHS hospital trust in the UK. Through an iterative series of meetings, we were able to co-identify common concerns and together develop a distinctive narrative framework for effecting change by sharing patient experiences. This narrative framework is designed to help patients position themselves as ‘part of their healthcare team,’ emphasising roles and responsibilities between patients and health practitioners to compare ideals with reality in patient experiences. While the project was promising, several factors …

Listening As Medicine: A Thematic Analysis, Rachel Kishton M.D., Heta Patel, Divya Saini, Jeffrey Millstein M.D., Aaron Levy Ph.D.

Patient Experience Journal

Realizations of the importance of “the art of medicine” in trust-building and patient satisfaction have resulted in the incorporation of narrative medicine programs into training curricula. By learning how to respond to patient stories as well as communicate their own, healthcare providers can ensure that their patients feel heard and respected. This study seeks to define what constitutes empathetic listening through a qualitative analysis of personal narratives collected from patients, caregivers, and providers across an urban academic healthcare system. Stories (n=41) underwent thematic analysis to note common experiences related to listening during a health system encounter. Eighteen grounded codes were …

Enhancing Patient-Centered Care For Limited English Proficiency Patients Through Tell Me More®: A Student-Driven Initiative To Explore The Patient As A Person And Develop Students’ Communication Skills, Angela Liu, Alicia W. Leong, Alice Fornari, Taranjeet Kalra Ahuja

Patient Experience Journal

Tell Me More® (TMM) is a medical student-driven initiative to build rapport between patients, students, and the healthcare team through patient interviews and collaboratively created posters. Patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) often experience impaired communication with providers. TMM has the potential to address the loss of patient-centered dialogue in interpreter-mediated communications. In this exploratory pilot study, we aimed to include LEP patients in TMM by using medical interpreter phones (MIPs) at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, Northwell Health. Our objectives were to: (1) evaluate the feasibility of this approach, (2) compare TMM engagement between LEP and English-speaking (ES) patients, …

Rebuilding A Foundation Of Trust: A Call To Action In Creating A Safe Environment For Everyone, Cynda H. Rushton, Laura J. Wood, Karen Grimley, Jerry Mansfield, Barbara Jacobs, Jason A. Wolf

Patient Experience Journal

Well before the COVID-19 pandemic, incivility and physical threats directed toward healthcare employees and often registered nurses was a growing concern by Chief Nurse Executive (CNE) leaders. In 2019, conversations initiated by The Beryl Institute’s Nurse Executive Council (NEC) to consider how best to achieve a much-needed balance between patient/family and staff safety have now become a critical priority to ensure the safety of everyone receiving and providing health care services. The heart of this work was organized around a set of newly developed ethical precepts designed to guide the exploration of key concepts. A call to action grounded in …

A Patient’S Narrative Of Engaging Hiv Care: Lessons Learned To Harness Resources And Improve Access To Care, David Lessard, Serge Vicente, Patrick Keeler, Bertrand Lebouché

Patient Experience Journal

In Canada and the USA, about 30% of people with HIV are uninsured or not covered by government-subsidized health insurance. This paper presents a patient’s narrative of his experience being diagnosed with HIV and accessing care in the midst of his process of immigrating to and studying in Canada. The narrative explores how Vincent Croft (pseudonym) has coped with the chronicity of the infection and its associated social stigma, and the temporary solutions he found to access treatment. Engaging with healthcare providers, researchers, and other people living with HIV has allowed Croft to share his experience, including the barriers he …

Treading Water: Coping With Uncertainty During A Novel Pandemic, Sachin Patel

Patient Experience Journal

The abruptness with which the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the delivery of healthcare will have a lasting effect on patients and families of intensive care unit survivors. Using the best science and epidemiology healthcare systems developed protocols and policies to implement the highest level of care but mitigate disease spread. Out of these initiatives the “no visitor” policy was born. The impact of COVID-19 causing florid respiratory failure immediately derailed the lives of a happily retired couple. While on mechanical ventilation for sixteen days, Betty was unable to connect with her husband of over 40 years. In that time, the …

Finding Common Threads: How Patients, Physicians And Nurses Perceive The Patient Gown, Christy M. Lucas, Cheryl Dellasega

Patient Experience Journal

Evidence-based care is standard practice in medicine, but the patient gown has fallen outside the scope of scholarly research. The current gown renders a patient vulnerable, diminishing patients’ sense of identity, agency, and dignity with its one-size-fits-none design. The impact on providers is similarly neglected. Our objective was to explore how patients and providers derive meaning from patient gowns. A convenience sample at an academic medical center was interviewed utilizing a standardized framework developed by a medical student and two PhD-prepared researchers with experience in qualitative methods. The study was inductive in nature, seeking to understand perceptions of the patient …

Patient Perspectives: Four Pillars Of Professionalism, Laura Yvonne Bulk, Donna Drynan, Sue Murphy, Patricia Gerber, Roberta Bezati, Sacha Trivett, Tal Jarus

Patient Experience Journal

Professionalism is a core component of healthcare practice and education; however, there is often not a consistent description of professionalism, and current definitions lack a key perspective: that of the patient. This study aimed to deepen understandings of patients’ perspectives on how professionalism should be enacted by healthcare providers. Using a phenomenological approach informed by constructivist theory, the study team conducted semi-structured interviews and focus groups with 21 patients to ascertain their views on professionalism. Data analysis was conducted using a constant comparative approach wherein initial analysis informed subsequent data collection. Participant themes fell into four pillars of professionalism: taking …

Tell Me More: Promoting Compassionate Patient Care Through Conversations With Medical Students, Danielle Qing, Anjali Narayan, Kristin Reese, Sarah Hartman, Taranjeet Ahuja, Alice Fornari

Patient Experience Journal

Tell Me More^® (TMM) is a medical student driven project that represents a movement amongst the rising generation of physicians to practice humanistic, patient-centered medicine through a collaborative approach. Students interviewed patients to create individualized posters designed to build rapport and trust between patients and clinicians, remind patients of their special strengths by highlighting their unique interests and qualities, and encourage more personal and compassionate patient-clinician interactions in order to enhance the patient experience. Students asked each patient three questions: 1. “How would your friends describe you?” 2. “What are your strengths?” 3. “What has been most meaningful to …

I’M Going To Tell You A Little About Myself: Illness Centrality, Self-Image And Identity In Cystic Fibrosis, Susan Horky Lcsw, Laura Sherman Licsw, Julie K. Polvinen Ba, Medhavi Saxena Md, Michael Rich Md

Patient Experience Journal

This study assessed the illness centrality of adolescents with CF and the specific ways that CF may affect adolescents’ identities, through the qualitative analysis of video narratives. Adolescents with CF were loaned video cameras and asked to “show us your life outside the hospital” and to “teach your healthcare team about your CF.” Four major themes were identified related to illness centrality: CF is Central, CF is Compartmentalized, CF is Integrated into Self Image, CF is Denied. Integration and compartmentalization often co-existed. Four themes emerged related to the role of CF in self-image and identity: (1) Valence (positive or negative); …

Increasing Sustainability In Co-Design Projects: A Qualitative Evaluation Of A Co-Design Programme In New Zealand, Lynne Margaret Maher Dr., Brooke Hayward, Patricia Hayward, Chris Walsh Dr

Patient Experience Journal

The Health Quality & Safety Commission New Zealand commissioned Ko Awatea, an innovation and improvement centre, to deliver a co-design programme to nine teams of healthcare providers. The co-design programme was part of Partners in Care, a broader programme developed in 2012 to support and enable patient engagement and participation across the health and disability sector. Teams received training, guidance and mentorship in Experience Based Design (EBD) methodology.¹ We evaluated the co-design programme to explore barriers and facilitators to the sustainability of the co-design projects and the EBD approach. The evaluation involved seventeen semi-structured interviews with programme participants, including …