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Meeting the Medical Students: Transformation and Closure for Donor Families
Author(s) -
Moon Mary Brennan,
O'Donoghue Daniel L.,
Halliday Nancy
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.2018.32.1_supplement.632.5
Subject(s) - donation , theme (computing) , closure (psychology) , focus group , psychology , humanism , medical education , social psychology , medicine , family medicine , political science , sociology , law , anthropology , computer science , operating system
Beginning in 2000, our institution inaugurated the Anatomical Donor Luncheon. This event occurs during orientation week for all incoming first‐year medical students. The families of our anatomical donors are invited to lunch where they meet the medical students who have been assigned to their deceased family member to learn human anatomy through dissection. Both students and donor families are informed that the venue provides an opportunity to promote the humanistic aspects of medicine. The families are asked to provide the medical students with the social history of their deceased family member, but are not given specific instructions on how to do so. The effect of this encounter on student attitudes has been previously reported. In the current study, we evaluated the reactions and attitudes of the donor families after meeting the medical students. Focus group questions were developed to explore the experience of donor families who met with first year medical students during the luncheon. The focus group comments were digitally recorded and transcribed, keeping the identities of responders anonymous. The audio data was subsequently destroyed. The constant comparative method was used for coding the textual data. One meta‐theme and three sub‐themes were identified. The meta‐theme was Donor Family Participants Experience Transformation and Closure . The subthemes included Motivating Factors for Donor Luncheon Participation , Impressions of the Venue, and Positive or Negative Experiences . Our data suggests that the Donor Luncheon was a mechanism for families to find closure on the death of their loved one and transformed their hesitation regarding body donation into excitement and appreciation. The institutional review board of the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center approved this study. This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal .