Promoting self-awareness and reflection through an experiential mind-body skills course for first year medical students.

BACKGROUND: This research examines student evaluations of their experience and attitudes in an 11 week mind-body skills course for first year medical students.

AIMS: The aim is to understand the impact of this course on students' self-awareness, self-reflection, and self-care as part of their medical education experience.

METHODS: This study uses a qualitative content analysis approach to data analysis. The data are 492 verbatim responses from 82 students to six open-ended questions about the students' experiences and attitudes after a mind-body skills course. These questions queried students' attitudes about mind-body medicine, complementary medicine, and their future as physicians using these approaches.

RESULTS: The data revealed five central themes in students' responses: connections, self discovery, stress relief, learning, and medical education.

CONCLUSIONS: Mind-body skills groups represent an experiential approach to teaching mind-body techniques that can enable students to achieve self-awareness and self-reflection in order to engage in self-care and to gain exposure to mind-body medicine while in medical school.