Hadi Mohamad Abu Rasheed
ABSTRACT
The Impact of a Narrative Medicine Service Learning Cancer Survivor Project on Medical Student Learning Outcomes in Qatar
Dr. Hadi Mohamad Abu Rasheed
Qatar Cancer Society
Dana Mansour
Qatar Cancer Society
Rahaf Wasfi Abu Abbas
Qatar Cancer Society
Alan Weber
Weill Cornell Medicine - Qatar
Background: The study reports on the impact on medical student learning outcomes from a patient-education cancer survivor story book project in the State of Qatar.
Methods: Mixed-methods research was carried out in 2014-2017 to determine the impact of a cancer patient project on medical students’ learning related to the patient perspective of disease, psychosocial effects, and socio-economic factors affecting persons living with cancer. The Hamad Medical Corporation / Weill Cornell Medical College - Qatar (WCM-Q) JIRB and WCM-Q’s HRPP provided ethical approval in 2014 (IRB# 14-00143) and 2016 (IRB#16-00024). Twelve Medical students at WCM-Q collaboratively wrote cancer patient survivor stories and published them in the Story of Hope / قصة الامل. The 90-page Arabic and English language book is used for patient support by the Qatar Cancer Society. A self-selected sample of 9 students (6 female, 3 male) sat for 20-45 minute semi-structured audio interviews. Seven students (77.8% response rate) answered a pilot-tested 32-question online questionnaire with open response and 5-point Likert scale questions. Free-response textual data was combined with the transcribed interviews and analyzed qualitatively in NVivo 11.0 software to identify nine themes using classical Grounded Theory Method (Glaser and Strauss, 1976).
Results: Prior to the study students had previously spent on average less than 1 hour with a cancer patient. For 80.0% of the students, this was the first one-on-one encounter with a cancer survivor. The majority of students (20.0% strongly agree, 60.0% agree) reported that the experience changed their view of cancer patients. All respondents agreed (80.0% strongly agree, 20.0% agree) that service learning should form part of the formal medical curriculum. The following themes related to student learning were extracted from the textual data, and are reported below with a representative quote: 1. Learning about Cancer Patients in Qatar: “[I learned] the way they were handled in the hospital. How they refer to their own illness, the stigma, the family problems they faced. The journey some underwent, when cancer also affected other members of the family, and what they loved about their families (and even did not like, when it came to support). I learned about recurrences, and how it is not a death sentence, and how your view changes. 2. The Project and Medical Education: “when I see patients in the clinic, I don’t get to casually hang out with them and ask them about their personal experience and how it affected their life and family, and how they sought comfort and encouragement and support and how it affected their faith and what they did to keep themselves strong. I don’t get to see, to hear any of that in the clinic, so I am really grateful for that opportunity.” 3. Role of Service Learning: “doing it, living it, living through the experience, in community service is way much more effective than just learning about it in didactic lecture, or any other form of teaching that would happen in the university....So I think service learning should be highly integrated in medical schools.”
Conclusions: The study suggests that community-based public health service learning and narrative medicine projects involving cancer patients may be valuable for physicians-in-training to expand their knowledge of the social determinants of health and the patient perspective of disease, and to improve their patient-provider relations skills.
BIO
Dr. Hadi is the Head of the Professional Development and Scientific Research Department and the Scientific Advisor of Qatar Cancer Society (QCS).
Dr. Hadi is the representative member of the QCS in the National Cancer Governance Board in Qatar, the Gulf Federation for Cancer Control, the Union International for Cancer Control, World Cancer Day Advisory Group, the World Ovarian Cancer Coalition, and the All.Can International.
Dr. Hadi is a preceptor at the Department of Public Health - College of Health Sciences - Qatar University, Psychology and Social Work Master's Program at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, The University of Doha for Science and Technology’s School of Health Sciences, and Hamad Medical Corporation community medicine residency program.
Dr. Hadi organized and presented in more than 100 medical educational conferences and events and participated in clinical research and trials in USA and Qatar. Dr. Hadi was involved as a Co-PI in research projects that have earnt grants of around half a million dollars.
Dr. Hadi's research interests are pediatric diseases, cancer burden, cancer education and awareness, continuing medical education, Knowledge Attitudes Perception studies related to cancer, quality of life of people living with cancer, health literacy, cancer survival studies, equity in cancer care, narrative medicine and cancer, palliative care, the role of civil societies in cancer control, and social media and cancer awareness.