TY - JOUR T1 - “Sharing the impact of the disease”: a workshop on suffering for medical students JF - Medical Humanities JO - J Med Humanit SP - 100 LP - 106 DO - 10.1136/jmh.2008.000273 VL - 34 IS - 2 AU - W Lewis AU - K Hawthorne Y1 - 2008/12/01 UR - http://mh.bmj.com/content/34/2/100.abstract N2 - 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. ER -