Attitudes of Medical Students and Residents Toward Cancer

Abstract

Attitudes toward cancer and heart disease were evaluated in 99 freshmen medical students, 76 seniors, and 66 residents using the Cancer Attitude Survey and a Semantic Differential test. The Survey revealed a rise in positive attitudes towards patients' inner resources to cope with serious illness and toward personal immortality and a rise in negative attitudes toward early diagnosis of cancer as students progressed in their training. The Semantic Differential test demonstrated more negative attitudes toward cancer than heart disease in all groups (freshman, seniors, and residents in medicine, psychiatry, or surgery). The seniors had the most positive attitudes toward cancer and freshman the least positive attitudes. The residents had more positive attitudes than the freshmen but less positive attitudes than the seniors. The residents in psychiatry had more positive attitudes than the residents in medicine, who had more positive attitudes than the residents in surgery.

Health care professionals’ perceptions of seriously ill women

“…Haley, Huynh, Paiva, and Juan (1977) found that as medical students advance through medical school, they develop more positive attitudes about cancer patients' coping skills; however, physicians had less positive attitudes than senior medical students toward these patients' inner resources for coping with serious illness. In a similar study by Kaye, Appel, and Joseph (1981), medical students evaluated patients with cancer more negatively than patients with heart disease on all dimensions. Nehemkis, Gerber, and Charter (1984) found that physicians overHealth Care Professionals' Perceptions 9 rated the importance of pain and underrated the importance that cancer patients placed on disruption of leisure activities.…”

Professional problems of caring for the cancer patient

“…Although most studies have examined the attitudes of patients and of the general public, some attention has been paid to the attitudes of medical staff. A series of studies have used the Cancer Attitude Survey (Haley et al, 1968) to study changes in the attitudes of medical students as they progressed through training (Haley et al, 1977;Kaye et al, 1981), the impact of specific educational experiences on attitudes towards cancer (Blanchard et al, 1981) and to compare the attitudes of different groups of medical professionals (Cohen et al, 1982). The Cancer Attitude Survey measures four attitudinal dimensions: (a) attitudes towards the patients' inner resources and their ability to cope with serious illness such as cancer; (b) attitudes towards the value of early diagnosis; (c) attitudes towards aggressive treatment; and (d) attitudes towards and preparation for death, and acceptance of mortality.…”

“…The Cancer Attitude Survey measures four attitudinal dimensions: (a) attitudes towards the patients' inner resources and their ability to cope with serious illness such as cancer; (b) attitudes towards the value of early diagnosis; (c) attitudes towards aggressive treatment; and (d) attitudes towards and preparation for death, and acceptance of mortality. As students progress through their training, there are increasingly negative attitudes towards the value of early diagnosis and aggressive treatment, but increasing confidence in the patient's coping ability and ability to prepare for and accept death (Cohen et al, 1982;Haley et al, 1977;Kaye et al, 1981). Comparison of the groups studied in the early 1960s and in the late 1970s show similar changes over this time period within the medical profession as a whole, and that the attitudes of non-specialist doctors are not significantly different from those of patients or the general public (Cohen et al, 1982;Wyler, 1968).…”