Fostering a growth mindset and giving medical students a sense of purpose and belonging could turn the tide on the trend in surgeons’ poor mental health.
This is according to a large-scale study on medical student wellbeing led by Yoi Tibbetts, a research assistant professor at the University of Virginia’s School of Education and Human Development.
The findings, published in JAMA Network Open, confirmed that the more students embraced a growth mindset, the more they thrived.
Tibbetts, who directs the Motivate Lab, collaborated with the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine to examine burnout trends in medical school students.
He found burnout rates among osteopathic medical students increase drastically over time.
In the study, 29% of first-year students reported feeling moderately to severely burned out during their first semester. By graduation, this number surged to nearly two-thirds.
Also, 68% of the students who reported burnout experienced moderate to severe psychological symptoms, often associated with psychiatric disorders.
While Tibbetts’ research focused on osteopathic students, he suspects similar patterns exist among allopathic (MD) students.
He asked: ‘What is happening in medical school that is more than doubling the burnout rate from entering to exiting? This is the problem we’re trying to solve.’
Tibbetts and his team focused on improving student wellbeing through learning mindsets, including growth mindset, purpose and relevance, and sense of belonging.
This approach, successfully used with undergraduates, involves shaping students’ beliefs in their capacity for development and connecting their studies to personal purpose and a sense of community.
Tibbetts said: ‘We know we can improve learning mindsets through interventions and educational context changes. We can support students to feel more like they belong or see more purpose and relevance in their studies.’
To determine whether these factors would apply to medical students, Tibbetts’ team surveyed 6,622 nationwide students.
Students with greater resilience, purpose, and belonging uncertainty reported lower rates of burnout and psychological symptoms.
Tibbetts also found that students from historically marginalised backgrounds, including first-generation students and students of colour, fared better than their peers in many areas, including growth mindset and resilience.
He said: ‘Our data show that students from historically marginalised communities are coming in with many assets, not deficits, which we can build upon. We’re not going to solve this by targeting individual students. We need to target the system.’
The research team is now focused on shifting the educational environment to be more supportive. They are working with 150 faculty members from osteopathic medical schools, helping them create motivationally supportive learning environments that foster a growth mindset, belonging and purpose.
The intervention will impact around 17,400 students this year, hoping to improve wellbeing outcomes and reduce burnout among future physicians.
