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October 14, 2009 ■ News of local people and events in A
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HORSE SENSE At Webb Ranch, horses teach Stanford medical students how to better relate to their human patients By Maggie Mah Johnson
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r. Beverley Kane is a physician with an impressive resume. She teaches secondand third-year medical students how to be better doctors. She uses horses to do it. WHOA! What’s up with that? Since 2005, Dr. Kane has been the program director for “Medicine & Horsemanship” at the Stanford School of Medicine. The course is designed to help doctors develop the interpersonal skills necessary for good communication with patients and other doctors, a key issue in health care. Studies by the American Medical Association and others show poor communication to be a common cause of medical errors. It is often a factor in malpractice suits and patient dissatisfaction, and has a lot to do with whether a patient follows through with treatment.
According to the AMA, the ability to empathize decreases as medical students deal with increasing time constraints and the strain of treating people in highly emotional situations. “Many health-care professionals have not developed the emotional intelligence and perception required for clinical excellence,” Dr. Kane says. On top of that, patients don’t always say what’s really going on. It’s left up to the doctor to figure things out. “We’ve all been socialized into hiding our feelings and reactions, especially from somebody in a white coat,” says Dr. Kane. “Horses will tell you in no uncertain terms how you’re affecting them.” HOW HORSES HELP
Many experts agree that much and maybe most of human communication is non-
verbal. But in medicine, as elsewhere, the focus is on spoken and written words. Tuning into non-verbal communication could make an enormous difference, maybe even between life and death. Unlike most humans, horses are experts at non-verbal communication. Evolving as prey animals, their survival has depended on being extremely sensitive to minute gestures, eye movement and emotional energy. The way horses respond to body language makes them uniquely suited to teach humans that Photos by Michelle Le/The Almanac actions can speak louder than words. Top: Stanford medical student Cherie Page listens to the heart beat of a horse at Webb The idea of using horses to teach humans, “equine facilitated learning,” was conceived Ranch. Above: Dr. Beverley Kane, left, is program director for “Medicine & Horsemanship” by Dr. Allan Hamilton, chief neurosurgeon at the Stanford School of Medicine. and chairman of the department of surgery Hoof Beat is a new feature in The Almanac, is to promote and preserve the equestrian at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Hoof Beat written by Maggie Mah Johnson, who lives lifestyle of Woodside and the surrounding Center. As a physician and lifelong horseand rides horses in Woodside. She is writing areas. For more information on WHOA! go See HORSE SENSE, page 23
LIVING IN
horse country
this as a member of WHOA! (Woodside to whoa94062.org or call 380-6408. Horse Owners Association), whose mission
October 14, 2009 N The Almanac N 21