Perspectives on using a celebrity narrative to teach the psychiatric formulation to final year medical students

Abstract

Objectives The proficiency of an accomplished psychiatrist encompasses the development, adaptation, and refinement of a biopsychosocial formulation. A formulation aids clinical decision-making by organizing information and furnishes a documented rationale for decisions. Despite its significance, psychiatric trainees often perceive the formulation as arduous and time-intensive, leading to avoidance. Educational shortcomings are pervasive. Addressing this calls for low-cost, novel solutions. Undergraduate medical education possesses aspiring psychiatrists and provides a platform to develop a foundational understanding of formulation. This study aims to explore the viability of a novel, resource-efficient approach employing a celebrity case narrative to attain a fundamental understanding of the psychiatric formulation while concurrently elucidating activated pedagogical cognitions by using such methodology from the student's perspective. Methods A psychiatric formulation tutorial was conducted across five distinct final-year medical student cohorts during one academic year. A standardized tutorial structure was devised, incorporating interchangeable case studies. Following the tutorial, a post-tutorial survey was administered, followed by interviews that underwent qualitative analysis. Results Seventy-seven participants responded to the survey, expressing favourable views. Twenty students consented to interviews. They were distributed across five sessions with an average of four participants per group. Interviews yielded five key themes: Understanding of formulation, cognitive engagement, emotional salience and ethical considerations with twelve corresponding subthemes. The results suggested viability in using this methodology to teach formulation to foster a basic understanding and elicited a range of pedagogical phenomenon that may have contributed to this understanding. Conclusion This study indicates that integrating a celebrity narrative into psychiatric formulation teaching intervention bears potential for enhancing engagement concurrently mitigating negative attitudes towards the formulation. The approach reveals latent learning outcomes suggesting a profound pedagogical impact. The range of pedagogical process elucidated lays a foundational research base for future instructional design and research.