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Trauma-Informed Care in the Classroom: Our Experience with a Content Warning in a Medical School Course

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Abstract

Trauma is now recognized as a common human experience that has consequences, including adverse effects on learning outcomes. Principles of trauma-informed care include awareness of the impact of trauma and use of strategies to prevent retraumatization. While well-described in medical and mental health care, these principles have been inconsistently applied in the medical education classroom. Content warnings can be part of a trauma-informed classroom approach that notifies learners about potentially distressing topics, allows individuals to employ self-care, and seeks to resist retraumatization. This article describes our experience integrating a content warning about reproductive topics in a second-year medical school course.

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Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the contributions of Samia Hasan, MD, for input on the wording of the content warning and of Jessica Byram, PhD, for editorial advice.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Veterinary Administration Department, Indiana University School of Medicine-West Lafayette, Purdue University, 715 Clinic Drive Suite 2069, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA

    Julianne Stout

  2. Indiana University School of Medicine–Fort Wayne, Fort Wayne, IN, USA

    Angelika I. Martin

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  1. Julianne Stout
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JS made major contributions to the concept, design, literature search, manuscript preparation, and manuscript editing and review aspects of this article. She is the guarantor of the integrity of the work as a whole from inception to published article. AM made major contributions to the concept, design, literature search, manuscript preparation, and manuscript editing and review aspects of this article. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Julianne Stout.

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Our study protocol IRB-2021–1129 was reviewed by the Purdue University Institutional Review Board and by the Indiana University Institutional Review Board (Protocol 12390) and designated by both as not human subjects research.

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This project does not include individual data and thus a specific consent to publish is not needed.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Stout, J., Martin, A.I. Trauma-Informed Care in the Classroom: Our Experience with a Content Warning in a Medical School Course. Med.Sci.Educ. 32, 711–718 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40670-022-01559-0

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