Narrative Medicine and Pediatric Oncology

Methods and Procedures This study is designed to evaluate the impact of a narrative medicine curriculum on a convenience sample of pediatric residents rotating through MSKCC during the 2020-2021 academic year. The first block of the study period will be a control group, followed by treatment (the second block). Blocks will alternate in this way for the remainder of the 12 month period (control-treatment-control-treatment-control-treatment etc).

The treatment group will be offered three sessions in narrative medicine during their block at MSKCC, with sessions taking place during the one-hour afternoon conference time slot. The control group will proceed through the standard afternoon conference curriculum, with no narrative medicine sessions.

A session in narrative medicine is defined as a one-hour session in which a pre- selected piece of poetry or literary fiction is read, then responded to in written form, with the option to share one's responses aloud with the group. It provides opportunity for reflection, meaning-making, bearing witness to the stories of doctors and patients, and important professional development. Candidate texts have been chosen by experts in narrative medicine, English literature, and creative writing, and are grouped around 4 themes: caring for ill and dying children and their families, forging connections, coping with uncertainty and ambiguity, and mindfulness. The publishers for each piece are currently being contacted and permission requested for their use in this study. While the use of works in the context of this study meets Cornell University Check.list for Fair Use Criteria, some publishers charge a nominal fee, up to approximately $50, for use of a complete work such as a poem. Excerpts from books are typically at no charge. The cost of these permissions has been figured into the study budget, and is funded by a Pilot Grant from the Dept. of Pediatrics.

Narrative medicine sessions will be standardized, and will be taught by 5 of the 6 co-investigator's: two from pediatric emergency medicine, one from pediatric pulmonology, one from the office of the chaplain, and one from the Dept. of Child Psychiatry at MSK. All five will receive training in facilitating narrative medicine sessions. They will each attend one narrative medicine session at the WCMC Liz Claiborne Center for Humanism in Medicine, and they will each read relevant chapters of the textbook "Narrative Medicine," by Rita Charon.

A pre-test, comprised of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS) and the Professional Quality of Life Scale: Compassion Satisfaction, Burnout, and Fatigue Scale Version V (ProQOL) will be administered to all groups during the first session of each block, and demographic information will be collected, specifically post-graduate year, self-identified gender, self-identified race and/or ethnicity, previous exposure to narrative medicine, and previous rotations in clinical oncology. A post-test, using the same survey instruments, will be administered during the final session, along with two open-ended questions about their experience with this curriculum. Only the intervention group will answer the two open-ended questions.

Each resident will choose a 4-digit ID number which will be written on their demographic intakes and pre-and post-tests, as well as on the sign in sheet for the 2nd narrative medicine session during intervention blocks. They will be asked to email their PIN to themselves during the pre-test so that they will not forget the number. This identifying pin-number is necessary in order to match individual pre-tests to post-tests and assess degree of change for individuals over the duration of the study.