Monday, May 6, 2013

Med Students Taught Bedside Manner Using Horses

I thought this was very interesting and thought you might too.  I hope the video works. Sorry I don't know how to delete the advertisement in the beginning.



TODAY
TODAY   |  May 06, 2013

Med students taught bedside manner using horses


For America’s next generation of doctors, bedside manner can fall by the wayside in the first few years of medical school. But one doctor in Arizona is hoping to change that by offering a first-of-its-kind class using horses to instill compassion. NBC’s Dr. Nancy Snyderman reports. 

 


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20 comments:

  1. That is so cool! I truly believe that interaction with horses would improve just about every human being's quality of life; in so many ways. There are probably countless ways that horses could be incorporated into mainstream life that haven't been discovered yet. We're still infants into learning to appreciate this (and so many others) animal. They truly are a blessing to mankind. I used to be friends with a lady who was a psychologist who specialized in people with sexual trauma and abuse who used horses and dogs in her practice. The results she had were staggering. The animals made such a dramatic difference in the quality of healing that took place. Unconditional love, acceptance and trust were just the beginnings of what she said were achieved so much quicker and were key to breaking through to other issues.

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    1. I agree with you wholeheartedly. Amazing how your friend got such wonderful results incorporating animals into her therapies.

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  2. Thanks for sharing! I loved this news segment.

    Horse are amazing creatures. I have long thought that working with horses and life itself hold numerous parallels. This was one great application that I had not thought of before.

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  3. I hadn't thought of it either but it makes sense.

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  4. Wonderful! What a change in the medical world if this class were a requirement. Horses teach everything that is so needed by the human patient. How terrific that this was featured on the news. I believe Stanford has offered a similar class which has been very successful. (need to check Simply Marvelous Horse World for the story, wrote about it some time, ago). Thanks for posting this!

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  5. Again, thanks for posting this news story! Horses can teach us everything we need to know in nearly all situations.

    I went back and re-read the Stanford Medical School/Horses info.Here's the link. Hope it works.

    http://simplymarvelous.wordpress.com/2007/10/13/stanford-university-medical-students-learn-from-horses/

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  6. Thanks for the link. I don't remember reading about it but I'm sure I did and simply forgot. That happens more than I'd like lately.

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    1. I forgot about that story and I posted it. (some days I worry!)

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  7. That's great. My daughter is getting a Master's in Special Education. While being interviewed by the parents of a difficult child, she told them about her experiences working with horses, and they said that if she could handle horses, she could handle their child. The other day I watched her discipline my horses when they were misbehaving, so the assertiveness you develop while working with horses helps in other professions, such as teaching. It's kind of the opposite of learning sensitivity and applying it to bedside manners, but horses can teach us just about anything we need to learn.

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    1. I agree. Horses can and do help each of us develop the skills we need to cope with many situations.

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  8. AnonymousMay 08, 2013

    What a great story. Wonderful to see how it works (not a surprise to us horse-people, of course) and to see that it is being picked up by other schools.

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    1. Wouldn't it be wonderful if more schools took up this practice. It might make that many more people sensitive to the plight of some of the horses in this country. Sort of a win win situation for both horses and humans.

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  9. What a great concept. I know my work with horses transferred over into my human classroom more than once. I was never intimidated by big teenagers, and I learned how to be fair and assertive with my discipline. I also learned to reward "try" a lot more than some teachers I knew.

    This is one more super argument as to how valuable horses are to mankind and why we should not eat them. (Just had to add that due to the horse slaughter issue that's creeping around the news again.)

    Thanks for posting this.

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    1. I can see where being around horses could help in the classroom. Sounds like you used your experiences with horses to understand how a " try" could lead to students being rewarded and feeling better about themselves.

      I'm sick about them reopening slaughter plants here. Politics and pay offs yet again come into play and the horses lose as usual.

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  10. What a brilliant idea! Seems so obvious, its weird its not more widely done especially when I think how, generally speaking, the medical profession here in the UK seems to have lost its way -- everything's now about meeting targets and reducing waiting times and similar nonsense, almost always to the detriment of the patient.
    Wouldn't it be great if something similar was used to help troubled youngsters, instead of labelling them 'juvenile delinquents' and 'losing' them in the system ...
    Thanks for sharing!

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    1. Horses can really help so many people in different situations. I've read that some prisons have inmates working with horses and donkeys training them.

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  11. Fun totally side bar comment? Dr. Nancy Snyderman is actually a horse woman herself! She just got a new horse last year (at least I think it was last year...it all blends together!) and I bet I will see her out at the dressage shows this year.

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  12. I didn't know that she was a dressage rider. Bet you will see her then.

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  13. Having been the patient of a surgeon with no bedside manner what-so-ever, and having firmly requested that he leave my room immediately, I think this program has a lot of merit and I would love to see it as a core requirement rather than an elective. I would have loved to see what one of my horses would have done if the surgeon had marched in and flipped their hospital gown over their shoulder without even so much as a hello.

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  14. I'd say that his bedside manners could be improved. That was just plain rude.

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