Bedside Healers: An approach to increase humanistic practices in the inpatient setting

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting visitor restrictions, the inpatient setting has become isolative for many patients. We initiated a program, Bedside Healers, in which medical students rotating at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania dedicate time to bedside discussions with patients in the Complex Medical Care Unit in an effort to provide more individualized care to patients and enable them to feel connected with their physicians. After collecting their weekly entries detailing the patient experiences the students had, we found that this program was able to increase patient-centric humanistic practices and improved the overall patient care experience for patients and physicians alike. We encourage other inpatient settings to adopt similar initiatives especially during these unprecedented and isolating times.