%0 Journal Article %A W Lewis %A K Hawthorne %T “Sharing the impact of the disease”: a workshop on suffering for medical students %D 2008 %R 10.1136/jmh.2008.000273 %J Medical Humanities %P 100-106 %V 34 %N 2 %X Objectives: To investigate the attitudes of early clinical students to the concept of suffering and the work of Eric Cassell.Design: Qualitative case study using group interviews and questionnaires.Setting: A United Kingdom medical school.Participants: Two whole-year cohorts of third-year medical students (n = 557).Interventions: Group interviews involving 57 randomly selected students, with exploration of emergent themes using free text and Lickert scale questionnaires.Results: Students engaged readily with the concept of suffering and were able to identify a patient they had encountered who was suffering. Barriers to student involvement with suffering were identified. Students saw engaging with patient suffering as a clinical skill. Many students saw the ideas of Eric Cassell as plausible, although few were convinced that relief of suffering should be the central goal of medicine.Conclusions: The work of Eric Cassell formed the basis of a teaching intervention with medical students who identified engaging with suffering as a clinical skill. %U https://mh.bmj.com/content/medhum/34/2/100.full.pdf