Residents are asked to complete this exercise at the end of each residency year.
Instructions
Consider a patient encounter, either inpatient or in clinic, where you experienced a challenge related in some way to Aware Medicine. This might be a time where your beliefs or the beliefs of your team were in conflict with the beliefs of the patient and his or her family. It may be tied to the death of a patient, an unexpected poor outcome, disagreement about treatment plans, challenges regarding code status and the withdrawal of care, or any issue you feel is relevant.
Write a narrative about the situation, which answers the questions below. Submit this narrative as a word file to the course instructors via email.
1. Give your case log a title.
2. Describe the situation (these will be placed on the public website, so do not include any personal identifying information, hospital names, or names of other staff involved in the case).
3. Outline the challenges that you and other providers experienced in the care of this patient. How did your beliefs/intentions differ from those of the patient and/or the family?
4. How did your personal beliefs influence your actions in this case? How did they guide your approach to care?
5. What was the outcome for the patient?
6. On reflection, what went well in the care of this patient? What would you do differently?
7. How did this experience make you feel? Did you feel supported by others as events unfolded?
8. Any other thoughts or comments?
View the archived cases presented by residents in the past.
A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder; fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won; the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.
-Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces