Compassionatomy: Can Compassion Contemplative Practices Foster Student Connection with Body Donors and Enhance Empathy in Anatomy Labs?

First-year medical students who participated in Compassionatomy, a program integrating compassion training into anatomy dissection labs, reported a stronger sense of connection with body donors over the academic year. Connection was higher after sessions that included compassion training than after those without it. Greater connection was linked to more positive emotional feelings but not to changes in arousal. Engagement with compassion exercises during sessions increased over time, and students practiced more contemplative exercises outside the lab in weeks following compassion training. Empathy levels remained stable across the year and were similar to those of a previous cohort that did not receive the program.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Compassion training (CT) has been used in medical education to enhance patient care and decrease provider burnout. A growing number of institutions incorporate humanistic practices into anatomy classes; however, there is no report of CT ever being incorporated. The authors hypothesized that implementing CT during a pre-clinical anatomy course, a program called Compassionatomy, would help students to identify with body donors, practice compassion contemplative exercises during and outside of anatomy labs, and maintain high empathy levels throughout the academic year. All first-year medical students at UC San Diego enrolled in 2022/2023 experienced Compassionatomy, which included combinations of CT during the 7 most emotionally challenging dissections. Longitudinal study participants (n = 36) completed 20 session evaluations-after each of 7 sessions with and 13 sessions without CT. Students' connection with the body donor, assessed by the Inclusion of Other in Self scale, increased over the year (p < 0.001) with more connection after CT than non-CT sessions (p = 0.048). This increase was associated with higher self-rated positive emotional valence (p = 0.03) but not arousal (p = 0.56). In-session engagement with compassion practices increased over time (p = 0.04). More engagement in contemplative practices outside anatomy was reported in the weeks following CT than non-CT sessions (p = 0.02). Empathy levels, assessed by the Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSE), remained high across the year (p = 0.22) and did not differ between students in the cohort receiving Compassionatomy and the previous year's cohort who had not experienced Compassionatomy (p = 0.15). Results suggest that incorporation of CT into anatomy labs has benefits for enhancing connection with the body donor, the students' "first patient."