Students’ Experiences With Death and Dying Prior to Medical School: A Content Analysis of Students’ Written Reflections

Background:Personal experiences with death and dying are common among medical students, but little is known about student attitudes and emotional responses to these experiences. Our objectives were to ascertain matriculating medical students’ experiences with death and dying, describe the range of students’ emotional responses, and identify reactions, behaviors, and perceived roles related to these and future experiences with death.Methods:We provided a writing prompt to newly matriculated medical students asking them to “reflect on experiences you may have had with family or friends near the end of life.” Content analysis was performed to identify themes in the responses.Results:The 104 students in the entering class submitted 90 individual free-text responses (87%). Most (57%) students specifically mentioned at least 1 personal experience with death, with a range of emotional responses including sadness (29%), surprise (14%), and guilt (12%). Distinct themes emerged on content analysis including persona...