'Chicken Soup for the UW Medical Student Soul' Promotes Humanism

All medical students remember their first year as being an overwhelming time devoted to learning the particulars of the Krebs cycle, the intricacy of the Frank-Starling mechanism and the details of the brachial plexus.

Despite this, you would be hard-pressed to find many who decided to enter medical school to practice their memorization skills. Rather, in all likelihood, most students went through the tedious application process in order to become physicians who can care for their patients in times of greatest need.

Unfortunately, the many hours of studying countless modules and poring over numerous tables have a way of diminishing the development and enrichment of one's sense of empathy, humanism, leadership and dedication to service. This observation is what inspired the 2007-08 Gold Humanism Honor Society (GHHS) inductees at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health to create a "humanism" pocketbook for UW medical students.

The national GHHS was created by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation to "honor senior medical students, residents, role-model physician teachers and other exemplars recognized for demonstrated excellence in clinical care, leadership, compassion and dedication to service."

Our GHHS chapter was started in 2006 and our advisors are Sharon Younkin, PhD, director of community programs at the school, and Patrick McBride, MD '80, MPH, dean of students. Selected by their peers, GHHS inductees are honored at the following year's White Coat Ceremony. Each group is asked to design a project with the mission of promoting the values of GHHS. For their project, the pioneering group created the "Humanism Rounds." Held at the hospital, these were talks about the virtues of humanism in medicine.

The pocketbook produced by the 2007-08 inductees is aptly named Chicken Soup for the UW Medical Student Soul. The 4-inch by 7-inch publication, intended to fit in a medical student's white coat, contains a rich collection of 27 stories submitted by medical students, residents, physicians, other health professionals and patients. The booklet is alive with poignant accounts of students' own experiences with health issues, humbling encounters with inspirational patients, and plenty of lifelong lessons that can be learned only in patient-care settings.

The pocketbooks were distributed to all incoming first-year medical students during their White Coat Ceremony on September 21, 2008. The idea was to provide the newest group of aspiring doctors a resource that serves as a reminder of why they originally embarked on this long journey. Sixteen well-deserving fourth-year medical students also were inducted into GHHS at the ceremony. We look forward to seeing the project they come up with.

The GHHS 2007-08 class consists of Patrick McKenna, Meghan Pesko, Mark Biagtan, Laura Bonneau, Zobeida Diaz, Emma Duncanson, Erica Garcia, Luxme Hariharan, Ryan Hatchell, Ben Heinzen, Heather Peto, David Vallejo, Jr., Adam Kadlec, Kelly Mackin, Branden Pfefferkorn, Jeffrey Phillips, Jon Printz, Maggie Printz, Timothy Rolle, William Schmitt, Ellen Selkie, Shannon Straszewski, Jaime Hook and myself.

by Jimmy Wu, Med 4
This article appears in the fall 2008 issue of Quarterly.