Abstract
BackgroundWestern medicine is an evidence-based science, whereas Chinese medicine is more of a healing art. To date, there has been no research that has examined whether students of Western and Chinese medicine differentially engage in, or benefit from, educational activities for narrative medicine. This study fills a gap in current literature with the aim of evaluating and comparing Western and Chinese Medicine students’ perceptions of narrative medicine as an approach to learning empathy and professionalism.MethodsAn initial 10-item questionnaire with a 5-point Likert scale was developed to assess fifth-year Western medical (MS) and traditional Chinese medical (TCMS) students’ perceptions of a 4-activity narrative medicine program during a 13-week internal medicine clerkship. Exploratory factor analysis was undertaken.ResultsThe response rate was 88.6% (412/465), including 270 (65.5%) MSs and 142 (34.5%) TCMSs, with a large reliability (Cronbach alpha = 0.934). Three factors were extracted from 9 items: personal attitude, self-development/reflection, and emotional benefit, more favorable in terms of enhancement of self-development/reflection. The perceptions of narrative medicine by scores between the two groups were significantly higher in TCMSs than MSs in all 9-item questionnaire and 3 extracted factors.ConclusionsGiven the different learning cultures of medical education in which these student groups engage, this suggests that undertaking a course in Chinese medicine might enhance one’s acceptance to, and benefit from, a medical humanities course. Alternatively, Chinese medicine programmes might attract more humanities-focused students.
Highlights
Western medicine is an evidence-based science, whereas Chinese medicine is more of a healing art
This study aims to fill the gap in current literature by comparing Western and Chinese Medicine students’ perceptions of narrative medicine as an approach to learning empathy and professionalism
In order to deal with the cross loadings issue, we examined the factor loadings using oblimin to see if these cross-loadings still appeared
Summary
Western medicine is an evidence-based science, whereas Chinese medicine is more of a healing art. There has been no research that has examined whether students of Western and Chinese medicine differentially engage in, or benefit from, educational activities for narrative medicine. Narrative medicine is medicine performed with narrative skill and offered as a model for humanism and effective medical practice, illuminating medicine’s crucial narrative relations: physician and patient, physician and self, physician and colleagues, and physicians and society [6, 8]. Such narrative skill can be developed through engaging in one’s own narrative. The development of narrative skill can include listening to stories of patients, self- reflection, and reflection on the profession as a whole, or even on society as a whole [8, 10]
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