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How Mindfulness Has Been Integrated into Three Medical School Curriculums

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Mindful Medical Practitioners

Abstract

As mentioned in Chap. 1, medical schools have been introducing mindfulness to their students in various ways – from single lectures, to workshops and electives, to complete courses. Very few have been able to integrate it into their core curriculum. This chapter features three prominent universities that have succeeded in doing this. The authors (from each university) describe not only what they teach but also the evolution of their respective programs. Naturally, the narratives differ as they each had to adapt to the norms and needs of their respective institutions. Rather than have these serve as templates, they are meant to show what is achievable when program developers are committed to this endeavour, are able to communicate the rationale to faculty and are able to creatively integrate mindfulness content within an already existing curriculum. These model programs illustrate that it took time and patience to integrate mindfulness into mainstream Western medical school classrooms and practicums.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Medicine, Programs in Whole Person Care, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Patricia Lynn Dobkin

  2. Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Craig Stephen Hassed

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  1. Patricia Lynn Dobkin
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  2. Craig Stephen Hassed
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Dobkin, P.L., Hassed, C.S. (2016). How Mindfulness Has Been Integrated into Three Medical School Curriculums. In: Mindful Medical Practitioners. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31066-4_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31066-4_4

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-31064-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-31066-4

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

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