Dataset Information

An Educational Session for Medical Students Exploring Weight Bias in Clinical Care Through the Lens of Body Diversity.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Weight bias is pervasive in health care and can lead to inadequate care for people with higher weight. However, few medical schools offer training on mitigating weight bias and incorporating body diversity into clinical care.

Methods

As part of a course for second-year medical students, we developed and implemented a 3-hour multimodal educational session on mitigating weight bias. Didactics included content on body diversity and addressing weight bias, followed by a facilitated case discussion in small groups focused on debunking common myths related to weight. Assessment consisted of an open-content quiz and evaluation of a postsession survey. We performed a thematic analysis of the essay quiz responses and evaluation survey results.

Results

Three hundred fifty-three students participated in academic years 2020-2021 and 2021-2022. In the postsession quiz, students described several learning points, including understanding environmental influences on body size, improving communication by reducing weight bias, and strengthening the patient-provider relationship. In the postsession evaluation, students reported that their knowledge and skills had improved with respect to the learning objectives, with means of 4.0-4.1 on a 5-point Likert scale. Areas for suggested improvement included more time for discussion and more guidance on weight-inclusive care.

Discussion

This multimodal educational session on weight bias was successful in meeting the stated learning objectives. Future work will consist of building on this content and extending future iterations to residents and attendings, with the goal of disrupting harmful assumptions and improving access to holistic, evidence-based care for all people, regardless of size.

SUBMITTER: Eichenberg TB

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10477274 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

An Educational Session for Medical Students Exploring Weight Bias in Clinical Care Through the Lens of Body Diversity.

Eichenberg Tzeidel Brown TB Parikh Seema S Cox Joy J Doshi Dhvani D Padilla-Register Mercedes M DallaPiazza Michelle M

MedEdPORTAL : the journal of teaching and learning resources 20230905

<h4>Introduction</h4>Weight bias is pervasive in health care and can lead to inadequate care for people with higher weight. However, few medical schools offer training on mitigating weight bias and incorporating body diversity into clinical care.<h4>Methods</h4>As part of a course for second-year medical students, we developed and implemented a 3-hour multimodal educational session on mitigating weight bias. Didactics included content on body diversity and addressing weight bias, followed by a f ...[more]

PMID: 37674530

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Project description:IntroductionThe session was designed as part of a yearlong elective within the Association of American Medical Colleges' Education in Pediatrics Across the Continuum (EPAC) pilot at the University of California, San Francisco. The EPAC pilot aims for longitudinal pediatric education across the medical school and pediatric residency years, with specific emphasis on competency-based advancement. The goal of the elective is to cultivate students' early interest in pediatrics.MethodsThis is an interactive case-based session for medical students on the clinical presentation and initial evaluation of adolescent depression. We developed this session based on an informal needs assessment at our local institution as well as prior research documenting the minimal time allocated to child and adolescent psychiatry in medical school curricula. The 80-minute interactive case-based format integrates knowledge and clinical experiences while requiring minimal equipment and preparation.ResultsThe session was administered at the University of California, San Francisco, in 2015 to 22 students. Fourteen participants completed evaluation questions (64% response rate). Of responders, 92%-100% thought the session was very or extremely effective at meeting the stated objectives, was interactive, had appropriate time allocated, and was very or extremely helpful at reinforcing objectives from the medical school curriculum. Thirteen participants completed postsession knowledge acquisition questions and performed better than controls (90% vs. 75%), but the difference was not statistically significant.DiscussionOther medical schools could easily administer this session as presented or adapt it to a different target audience or for different time constraints. It is an effective, interactive, well-paced, and helpful means of introducing to medical students a topic that is relevant for anyone going into pediatrics. Likewise, it helps to rectify the lack of child and adolescent psychiatry content in most medical school programs, and it aligns with the movement in undergraduate medical education towards more clinically integrated, inquiry-based curricula with attention to professional development.

Project description:ProblemThe World Health Organization calls on all with quality medical information to share it with the public and combat health misinformation; however, U.S. medical schools do not currently teach students effective communication with lay audiences about health. Most physicians have inadequate training in mass communication strategies.ApproachIn August 2018, a novel 90-minute class at the University of Minnesota Medical School introduced fourth-year medical students to basic skills for communicating with lay audiences through mass media. Instructors were physicians with experience interacting with the general public via radio, op-ed articles, social media, print media, television, and community and legislative advocacy. After a 20-minute lecture and sharing of instructors' personal experiences, students completed two 30-minute small-group activities. They identified communications objectives and talking points for a health topic, drafting these as Tweets or an op-ed article outline, then presented talking points in a mock press conference with their peers, practicing skills just learned. Pre- and postsurveys documented students' previous engagement and comfort with future engagement with mass media messaging.OutcomesOver 1 week, 142 students participated in 6 separate classes, and 127 completed both pre- and postsurveys. Before the course, only 6% (7/127) of students had comfortably engaged with social media and 14% (18/127) had engaged with traditional media in their professional roles. After the course, students self-reported an increase in their comfort, perceived ability, and likelihood of using specific communications skills to advocate for their patients (all P < .001).Next stepsThe course will be expanded into a 5-session thread for third- and fourth-year medical students spread over 2 years. This thread will include meeting physicians who engage with lay audiences, identifying best practices for mass health communication, identifying bias and misinformation, "dos and don'ts" of social media, and communication skills for legislative advocacy.

Dataset Information

An Educational Session for Medical Students Exploring Weight Bias in Clinical Care Through the Lens of Body Diversity.

Introduction

Methods

Results

Discussion

Publications

An Educational Session for Medical Students Exploring Weight Bias in Clinical Care Through the Lens of Body Diversity.

Similar Datasets

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