Aspects of palliative care in medical TV dramas and a look into its teaching capabilities

Abstract

Doctors often feel extreme negative emotions when providing palliative care and experiencing a patient's death. Their education leaves them unprepared for dealing with their various feelings which can directly lead to death anxiety and burnout. Doctor’s lack of coping in these situations can significantly decrease their feelings of happiness towards their life, career, and overall patient care. Therefore, using a modified exploratory qualitative research approach that distributed a survey to Maryland medical students, an auxiliary form of education was identified to fill the gap in doctor's training. This study sought to find if modern medical dramas could teach medical students about the personal emotions associated with palliative care and the importance of developing healthy coping mechanisms. Through the research the shows “House MD” and “Private Practice” have the most accurate representation of death, the emotions involved, and healthy coping mechanisms. Meaning, that the two shows can be used in medical education to enrich students’ learning on the personal effects of palliative care and how to cope. Furthermore, this training can potentially lead to the decrease of death anxiety and burnout in the medical field. Thus, creating an environment where expressing emotion is destigmatized and allows doctors to provide the highest quality patient care.