Course Offerings

Compassionatomy 1.0 and 2.0:

1.0 Description: Compassion Training (CT) sessions (10-15 minutes) were designed by the Compassion Institute in collaboration with the Thread Director, who facilitated them during the 8 most emotionally challenging dissections. CT included combinations of contemplative practices (e.g., tracking, gratitude ritual or offering of letters written to donor / burning ceremony. 

2.0 Description: Compassion Training (CT) sessions (10-15 minutes) are designed by the Compassion Institute in collaboration with the Anatomy Thread Director, who will facilitate them in all 28 labs in the '22-'23 academic year. CT includes combinations of contemplative practices (e.g., tracking, gratitude ritual or offering of letters written to donor / burning ceremony).

Putting the CARE in Healthcare- PSY 296:

The course is intended to teach both the science and practice of empathy and compassion to clinical learners. The overarching goal is to cultivate, enhance, and retain clinical learners' compassion for self and others by giving them a set of tools to rely on from evidence-based empathy and compassion content areas. Every weekly session will include instruction and discussion of key empathy and compassion concepts, contemplative science practices to put the concepts in action, interpersonal activities and journaling to promote reflection, and homework exercises for use in students’ daily lives. Social justice and health equity concepts will be included as a core foundation for the course.

Trauma informed Care:

In this 8-week course, students will gain a deeper understanding of trauma that is rooted in foundational knowledge of systemic violence. Each week will focus on a specific form of violence experienced by marginalized communities, including sexual assault/trafficking, displacement trauma, and state sanctioned violence. During the course, students will have opportunities to engage with people who care for trauma survivors as well as people who are trauma survivors themselves. Through interdisciplinary dialogue with community advocates and academic/clinical experts, students will learn about the intersectional nature of trauma and health. Students will also participate in skill-building activities in order to build techniques for compassionate and empathetic care of patients who have experienced trauma.

Resilience in Practice- PSY 296:

This medical education program aims to explore and build cognitive resilience through practice. In this 8-week course, students will have the opportunity to learn the concepts and practice of resilience from a scientific perspective. Students will develop knowledge and skills related to mood and wellness monitoring, paying attention to aspects of lifestyle that boost wellbeing, and practice mindfulness, self-reflection and gratitude within short modules that respect physician time and efficiency. Students will also be provided access to a digital wellbeing practice that involves daily 5-10 min sessions where participants briefly log aspects of their lifestyle (sleep, exercise, diet, social engagement) and mood. Participants then engage with a performance-adaptive meditative breath-focus exercise. Empathy and compassion instructions are integrated as audio and text prompts that are updated as weekly levels. At the end of each session, participants provide a brief text response to a positive self-reflection prompt and rate their level of gratitude.