Strategies to Support Medical Trainees Following Patient Deaths
by Melanie Orr, D.O.; Chindhuri Selvadurai, M.D. | August 20, 2026
Article Citation: Ibrahim H, Oyoun Alsoud L, West K, Maraka JO, Sorrell S, Harhara T, Nair SC, Vetter CJ, Krishna L. Interventions to Support Medical Trainee Well-being After Patient Death: A Scoping Review. J Hosp Med 2024; 19(5):350–359. doi: 10.1002/jhm.13489.
What is this article about?
This article addresses a well-documented gap in the medical education literature regarding trainees’ exposure to end-of-life care and confidence in managing the complex emotions surrounding patient death. A systematic review of 50 articles examined strategies to support medical trainees following patient deaths during their hospital rotations. Four intervention types were compared: educational (lectures and workshops), clinical experiences (rotations in hospice and palliative care), postventions (debriefing sessions) and arts-based (including film, music, and poetry). In doing so, each category’s unique role and potential benefits were explored. Additionally, the authors uncovered key gaps in the structure and consistency of these support interventions. The article highlights the high variability in format and frequency of each of the intervention domains, as well as lack of clarity regarding who should be responsible for delivering these interventions.
Why should you read the article?
This study sheds light on the significant emotional impact that death and dying have on medical trainees– contributing to stress, depression, and burnout. Reviewing this article helps the reader better understand the current shortcomings preparing trainees for encountering death and the accompanying emotional demands. The summary of available interventions equips medical educators with practical and evidence-based strategies to provide meaningful and comprehensive support to their learners when navigating end of life care.
How can you use this article?
This review offers guidance to medical educators for improving death and grief education through structured, diverse, evidence-based interventions—including early exposure to hospice and palliative care settings, standardized debriefing, reflective and art-based processing, and longitudinal, trainee-centered, interdisciplinary experiences that let learners engage with end-of-life care from multiple perspectives. However, important limitations should inform how these findings are applied: the article describes intervention types rather than analyzing their outcomes (available in the individual studies), and its primary population was resident physicians, which limits direct generalization to medical students or other trainee groups. Although, based on the interventions described, they could be adapted for medical student education. Future research should use standardized outcome measures to compare interventions across trainee levels and identify which approaches most effectively support trainees in end-of-life care.
Review Authors: Melanie Orr, D.O., PGY-4 Neurology resident, University of Connecticut School of Medicine, Farmington, CT (Co-authored Chindhuri Selvadurai, M.D., UConn Health, Farmington, CT). Organization: Consortium of Neurology Clerkship Directors