University of Wisconsin–Madison ⋅ Medical College of Wisconsin
WMJ

Bearing Witness to Suffering and Social Justice: A Novel Multimodal Medical Humanities Course That Cultivates Compassionate Health Care

Jessica C. Babal, MD; Liana Eskola, DO; Elizabeth A. Fleming, MD; Rory Bade, MD; Meinkeng Acha-Morfaw, MD; Jens Eickhoff, PhD; Nicole Nelson, PhD

WMJ. 2026;125(1):170-173.

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ABSTRACT

Background: Racism, sexism, ableism, addiction stigma, weight stigma, and imbalanced power structures in medicine threaten human health and well-being. Medical humanities education that addresses positionality and power in clinical care may enhance physicians’ abilities to provide compassionate care.

Methods: Sixty medical students completed a medical humanities elective during the 2020-2021 through 2023-2024 academic years focus on suffering and social justice in medicine and completed pre- and post-course surveys.

Results: Post-course surveys showed increases in students’ self-assessed knowledge about applying medical humanities practices to provide compassionate patient care (P < .001), plans to use medical humanities practices in their future career (P < .001), and intent to disseminate or share their medical humanities work (P < .001).

Discussion: This novel multimodal medical humanities curriculum exploring suffering and social justice fostered compassionate clinical care skills and intention to continually engage in humanities work.

Author affiliations: Department of Pediatrics, University of Wisconsin (UW) School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, Wisconsin (Babal, Bade); Department of Medicine, UW School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, Wisconsin (Eskola); UW School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, Wisconsin (Fleming); UW School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, Wisconsin (Acha-Morfaw); UW School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, Wisconsin (Eickhoff); UW School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, Wisconsin (Nelson).
Corresponding author: Jessica C. Babal, MD, Department of Pediatrics, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, 2870 University Ave, Suite 200, Madison, WI 53705; email babal@wisc.edu; ORCID 0000-0002-5964-3700
Financial disclosures: None declared.
Funding/support: None declared.
Acknowledgements: The authors would like to offer tremendous thanks to Alexandra Mechler-Hickson, MD, and Alec Lerner, MD, who were the medical students who requested we develop this course and provided early insights on course development.
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