Stress and Resilience Education in the Top 50 U.S. Medical Schools

Abstract

Abstract Substantial research points to psychosocial stressors as being very common, key drivers of lifelong health disparities. Given this evidence base, it should follow that medical schools provide focused education around stress and adversity, resilience (including resilience-promoting interventions), health equity, and integrative frameworks for understanding health and treating disease. To determine whether this is occurring, we systematically evaluated course descriptions for 50 of the top primary care-focused medical school programs in the United States, as judged by U.S. News and World Report. We calculated the percent of courses addressing each topic, evaluated whether the courses were elective or required, and re-ranked the programs based on their coverage of the above-described topics. Of 227 identified, 89.4% addressed equity, but only 7.0% discussed an integrative framework for understanding health and only 6.6% discussed stress, adversity, or resilience. No programs specifically mentioned life stress, toxic stress, or social stratification. Moreover, only 4.0% of courses were both required and devoted specifically to these topics. Current medical school curricula are thus leaving our future physician workforce ill-equipped to understand and treat stress-related disease. Expanding education on these topics will be important for addressing health inequities.