Compassion Research Committee

Founder
Krisha Mehta, MD

Dr. Krisha Mehta is currently a second-year resident in the Stony Brook Internal Medicine Program. She obtained a Bachelor of Arts from Hunter College, CUNY in New York City studying studio art and biological sciences and her medical degree from Stony Brook University School of Medicine. She has always been inclined to the combined role of art and science in medicine, which seamlessly lead her to wanting to study how to bring the art of practicing medicine formally into the medical education curriculum. Her studies at Delek Hospital – a Tibetan hospital in Dharamshala India opened her mind to the idea that compassion is a skill that can be formally taught in medical education.

After getting certified through the Stanford-Compassion Institute program, she performed deep literature dives and developed a course that uses evidence-based research to teach medical students on how to build their skillsets, essentially an active toolbox, for compassion cultivation. She is the director and co-instructor of this course at Stony Brook School of Medicine and is currently working on helping other medical schools develop a similar program. She has also been invited to guest lecture other courses at Stony Brook and other medical schools in the tristate area. She also founded the compassion research committee in the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics, to bring together individuals who want to build a program that refocuses on humanities in our medical education. Their research on this subject through the compassion research committee focuses on how to equip future healthcare professionals to co-create compassionate systems that enhance the well-being of our providers and patients. Through this research, they were able to demonstrate that compassionate care education through a formal curriculum developed an enhanced ability to engage in self-compassion, to understand the shared human experience, and to be motivated to act to alleviate suffering – all statistically proven on validated scales of mindfulness and compassion. She has been able to present this work at national conferences including Society of General Internal Medicine.

Dr. Mehta has also been the recipient of the Art in Medicine award and the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine award by Gold Humanisms Honor Society. She hopes to continue to assimilate compassionate care education as a formal curricular tool to all healthcare professionals and bring back to light the significance of practicing the art of medicine. 

Compassion Research Committee members

• Rebecca Jennings
   

  I joined the team because I am passionate about creating a compassionate environment for healthcare workers and their patients. I think that teaching and fostering self-compassion and compassionate care amongst healthcare workers is incredibly important in creating a good, sustainable work environment which in the end fosters better patient care. I plan on going into pediatrics in the future.

• Emilia Rakhamimova
  

  Emiliya Rakhamimova is currently a fourth-year medical student at Stony Brook, applying for a residency in Anesthesiology. She grew up in Brooklyn and attended Hunter College for her undergraduate education. During college, Emiliya worked closely with the Department of Education to improve access to resources and opportunities across NYC public schools. As a first-year medical student, Emiliya similarly looked to become involved in the advancement of medical education. She found the Compassion Steering Committee to be the perfect intersection of her interests in medical humanities and the educational sector of medicine. This year, she will be co-leading as the Head of Research and Head of Outreach in the committee. Emiliya hopes to continue building evidence-based methods for empathy and compassion cultivation through her research on the cognitive, affective, and moral components of empathy, and will be working alongside Nidhi and Krisha to incorporate this research into the RSOM curriculum.

• Nidhi Patel
  

  Hi! I’m Nidhi Patel, a rising M2 at RSOM. My  current interest in medical school is to explore my options and keep an opening mind as I enter clerkships soon. I have gotten a good understanding of my interests so far, and am considering both the vast Internal Medicine specialties and Emergency Medicine. I joined the Cultivating Compassion Research Project because I believe compassion and empathy are integral aspects of being a physician, and integral aspects of medical education. As healers and future healers, we students need to meet our patients’ needs while remaining aware, benevolent, and caring for their holistic situation. This team is a chief way for me to collaborate with those who have similar mindsets and goals about transforming med school curricula as a whole.

• Nisha Godbole
  

  Nisha Godbole is currently a fourth-year medical student at Stony Brook, applying for a residency in Internal Medicine for the Match in 2024. She grew up in New Jersey and attended Muhlenberg College for her undergraduate studies. Her early experiences in healthcare have provided her with a diverse perspective and a strong foundation, highlighting the indispensable role of compassion in delivering optimal patient care. During her time at RSOM, Nisha eagerly joined the Cultivating Compassion Committee, aiming to further her development, practice, and advocacy for compassion training in medical education. Within the committee, she actively engages in research to advance evidence-based compassionate training in medical education. This year, she is assuming the role of Head of Research for the committee, overseeing additional projects in this capacity. Nisha is committed to embodying compassion both within herself and towards others.

• Christina Mazza
  

  Christina Mazza is a current a fourth-year medical student at RSOM and a budding pediatrician, born and raised in Long Island, NY. Her interest in compassion was the foundation for her career in medicine because she felt that the two are intrinsically connected to become a physician. She believes that though compassion can be cultivated naturally, it can be grown through various interventions and needs to be refreshed as much as the material learned in lecture halls, but often is neglected. Her interest in this project stemmed from wishing to improve the experiences of medical trainees and prevent their burnout, which will reflect positively on future patient relationships. This year, Christina will be taking the role of primary course instructor for the Compassion Selective taught to the incoming Phase III students.

• Gabriella LoMonaco
  

  Gabriella is currently fourth year medical student at the Renaissance School of Medicine, applying into Obstetrics and Gynecology for the 2024 Match. She was born and raised close to Stony Brook and was actually born here in the hospital! Early in her second year, Gabriella reached out to advisors in the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics regarding getting involved in research. She started here because her dreams of becoming a physician were naturally intertwined with a love for the arts and humanities and its impact on patient care.  Thankfully, at the same time, Krisha had founded the Compassion Research Committee, which intersected many of Gabriella’s passions. This destined timing is how she came to join this committee. In addition to contributing to ongoing research project, this year Gabriella will be taking on the role of Head of Outreach to bring events regarding compassionate care to the RSOM community and Stony Brook Hospital.

• Alexander Cicala
  

  Alex is current a second-year student in the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) at the Renaissance School of Medicine. He is interested in being able to not only treat patients, but conduct basic, transitional, and humanitarian research in order to holistically address every facet of patients’ conditions.

• Allison Dammann
  

  Allison (she/her) is a fourth-year student pursuing an MD and an MA in the Department for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics. Her interests include child and adolescent psychiatry, highlighting compassion in psychiatric care, advocacy in medicine, and LGBTQ+ affirming healthcare. She is thrilled to be joining the Compassion Research Committee as a course instructor for the "Cultivating Compassion in Medicine" Selective for incoming Phase III students.

   

• Ali Kidwai
  

  Ali Kidwai is currently a fourth-year medical student at Stony Brook, applying for Internal Medicine residency. He grew up in Yorktown Heights, NY and attended college at Binghamton University. He became interested in the Compassion Research Committee after noting the importance of empathy in the clinical setting. He joined the committee to study new ways of incorporating compassion-based learning into medical education and has collaborated on a systematic review of existing curricula for empathy and compassion cultivation across medical schools.

Previous Compassion Research Committee members

• Shafkat Salam
  

  Shafkat is a current fourth-year student applying to Internal Medicine for match 2023. He always felt that compassion and empathy were inadequately taught during his medical school training, thus, he joined the compassion research team to help change that. Shafkat is a large proponent of the idea that compassionate physicians are better clinicians and improve patient outcomes. He strives to change medical education at a systems level so that our future physicians come out as both competent and compassionate health care providers.

• Afra Rahman
  

  Afra is a current fourth-year student applying to Psychiatry for match 2023. She joined the compassion research team due to her interest in learning about how compassion could be a tool for medical trainees to combat empathic distress. Afra hopes to continue research into compassion and find ways in which compassion can be used to elevate lives and overcome challenges such as, perhaps, climate change.

• Austin Hake
  

  I am a fourth-year medical student applying to anesthesiology. I have been interested in bioethics/compassion since the beginning of medical school because of its crucial role in the day-to-day experience of patients and the complex decisions that physicians come across. I joined the committee to pursue this interest further and disseminate evidence-based research about why compassion matters.

Projects

Literature Reviews

Compassion Curricula in Medical Education

Our current work involves a scoping literature review of the existing curricula for promoting compassion in medical students. There are a host of studies that have demonstrated a strong correlation between educational interventions and compassion levels in medical students, and subsequently, this leads to better patient care. This study will ultimately help guide future compassion curricula and interventions at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University.

 

Using Empathy Education to Prevent Medical Student Burn-Out

Our current works involves a scoping review looking to assess the various modalities utilized in medical education to prevent empathic distress. The review hopes to analyze outcomes and determine whether modalities that teach compassion are found to be more effective or not. She hopes the research will inform future design of programs created to help medical trainees continue to provide empathic care.

 

Medical Education Research Study

Prospective Study on a New Curriculum for Cultivating Compassion in 3rd Year Medical Students

The goal of this study is to evaluate whether a one-month course for medical students on cultivating compassion affects students’ self-reported measures of compassion. Using a validated survey we will assess whether this course cultivates self-compassion, as measured by changes in surveyed levels of compassion before and after course completion. We will also investigate the effect of this course on student’s ability to observe, describe, act with awareness, be mindful regarding their own biases and perceptions and connect with others. Our hypothesis is that the students participating in our selective will score higher on validated scales for self-compassion, compassion for others and mindfulness after completion of this course. We believe our results will better inform medical students, educators, and medical school administrators, on how to train providers/providers with evidence-based tools that can help cultivate compassion and allow a deeper understanding between patients and physicians.

Selective Course

Cultivating Compassion in Medicine: How healthcare professionals can build compassion toolkits

Compassionate care makes a measurable difference in patient experience and outcomes, and enhances clinician meaning, resilience and well-being. Research has also shown that such compassion can be trained using evidence-based meditative and visualization practices. This course will focus on learning how to translate conceptual compassion into practical tools for medical trainees. The class will learn and practice compassion building exercises and subsequently participate in group discussion based on thematic questions about those exercises and experiences. There are assigned readings on the science and evidence-based nature of these exercises and there are weekly written reflection to allow students to gain insight into how to use and apply the tools they learn in class in clinical practice. This course will help students to understand how evidence-based resources can be used to build compassion toolkits for healthcare professionals.