WA Rural School doctor leads research team on mindfulness

Mindfulness involves paying attention on purpose in the present moment, non-judgementally and could be practised through meditation and by consciously bringing awareness to each moment of each day.

Dr Moore said research had shown mindfulness could be a useful tool to reduce stress levels and minimise the side effects of stress.

She started the study in 2016 after her own experience practising mindfulness meditation and thought it would be a real benefit to medical students.

“I know they are a real stressed bunch of individuals, and that is to do with the workload and the unique stresses that come with being a medical student,” she said.

“There is not a lot around self care in the medical curriculum , students have to learn more and more, in less and less time without the support to look after themselves from a wellness perspective.”

As part of her role at the WA Rural School, Dr Moore is responsible for coordinating rural medical students throughout WA. 

Dr Moore reached out to Monash University associate professor Craig Hassed at the Department of General Practice who coordinates mindfulness programs for students.

“We put together a brief program, mindfulness is only five minutes per day and then they did a teaching video which was only about 10 minutes long per week.

“It is an introductory level program which was run over eight weeks and all delivered online.”

Dr Moore also approached the Lishman Health Foundation for a grant to employ research assistants to help her conduct the study.

During the study, they evaluated the program by measuring pre and post stress, self-compassion and compassion levels before the program, once it was complete and again before the students’ exams.

They had 47 medical students participate in the pilot study and received positive results which showed the participants perceived stress levels reduce and self-compassion levels increase.

“We did not see a lot of change in their compassion levels and we have a few theories about that,” she said.

“We figured medical students often have a level of compassion in them and that is why they choose medicine in the first place.

“They tend to be very hard on themselves so the whole self-compassionate element we felt was an important change we picked up from running the program.”

Dr Moore said in the quantitative part of the study students acknowledged they became more self-aware particularly about their emotions, their ability to regulate their emotions and communicate with patients.

She ran the program again in 2017, and again this year using a control group to compare one group who participated in the intervention and another which did not to see if they are different.

“Each week is a different theme, the first week participants do a body scan which is about tuning into the sensations of the body,” she said.

“The second week is about breath meditation, the third week is about tuning into the surroundings and listening mindfully and then go into more complex themes.

“So looking at being with their emotions, practicing love and kindness meditation and a mountain meditation – the ability to deal with the external environment, which can be quite crazy – and to stay centered.”

Dr Moore said in the videos they looked at issues like procrastination, multi-tasking, dealing with technology and communicating mindfully with patients and colleagues.

Lishman Health Foundation board member Kelly Hick said the independent charitable organisation  was established in 1997 to fund and promote health research.

Ms Hick said the foundation supported research which had significant health gain for people, families and communities in in the South West and more broadly regional Australia.

”In supporting the Rural Clinical School of WA with funds for the mindfulness study, the foundation is supporting the regional training of medical students who potentially will return to regional areas to work as doctors,” she said.