2025 Scholars' Research Symposium Abstract: Transitional Understanding of Kindness in Medical Students.

Abstract

Introduction: Humanistic qualities have been noted to be of importance in the patient-physician relationship. The patient-physician relationship can influence health outcomes. Research has shown that focusing on these qualities in the medical school curriculum can foster these qualities. In the current study, researchers chose to focus on the humanistic quality of kindness. This is a qualitative study assessing how students understand kindness in medicine both before and after their immersion in the clinical environment.

Methods: The subjects for this study were students of the class of 2025 at the University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine. Phase I took place during, towards the end of, or shortly after didactic training (Pillar I and Pillar II). Ten students completed a 3-question demographic survey, a 30-minute individual interview about their experiences of kindness in medicine, and 9-students participated in a one-hour focus group discussion. Phase II consisted of 9-individual student interviews and an 8-student focus group once students had completed at least a year of clinical experience (Pillar II and Pillar III).

Results: A total of 10-students volunteered for phase I of the study; 9-students moved on to complete phase II of the study. The data collected for this study consisted of audio-recorded interviews, which were transcribed. The transcripts were then analyzed for qualitative themes by two separate researchers using conventional content analysis. The main themes derived from the data were definition of kindness, clinical environments, how providers practiced kindness, and ethics. Subthemes were derived from these main themes to further compare the data between Phase I and Phase II.

Conclusion: This was a qualitative study assessing students' understanding of kindness in medicine. The themes of definition of kindness, clinical environments, how providers practiced kindness, and ethics were derived from the qualitative data. Important findings include the loss of kindness in negative clinical environments, the emphasis students placed on kindness being a decision in the clinical environment, the importance of context to kindness, and exposure to clinical environments aiding students' preparedness to face ethical challenges. Future work could investigate integration of humanistic values such as kindness into the medical school curriculum.