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Medical students aim to treat the most basic ailment: loneliness. BY ANEEQAH NAEEM
B
eing in a hospital can be difficult, painful, and
oftentimes overwhelming for patients. But those without
any family members or friends to visit them may face the
extra burden of loneliness when they’re already at their
lowest point.
To combat this isolation, the Brown Students at the Bedside
Program pairs patients in the hospital who have no visitors with
medical students. They spend 30 minutes to an hour sitting with a
patient and talking, watching TV, or simply just keeping them
company.
The program came to be when Katie DeCarli, MD, MBE, and a
group of Warren Alpert medical students met more than two years
ago and discovered their mutual interest in filling this unmet need.
“Sometimes the patient has no one in their lives, or they have
family that are far away and can’t come be with them,” says DeCarli,
a teaching fellow in medicine and an internist in Providence. “It’s a
vulnerable time for patients when they’re ill enough to be in the
hospital. We saw a need to provide those patients with some
companionship.”
In a hospital, it can be difficult to focus on patient needs outside of
the physical. Physicians are trained to treat and diagnose medical
issues, but emotional wellbeing plays an important role, too. “We see
HEALTH DISCOVERIES l WINTER 2020 3