Sharpen DTX and VCOM Abstract Accepted for AACOM's Educating Leaders 2026 Conference

We're thrilled to announce that our collaborative research with Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM) has, once again, been accepted for presentation at the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine's (AACOM) Educating Leaders 2026 conference in Las Vegas in April, 2026!

Statistically Significant Results in Medical Student Mental Health Literacy

The accepted abstract presents compelling evidence of the effectiveness of our Sharpen Mental Health Literacy (SMHL) program for medical students. In a rigorous pre- and post-test study with 54 VCOM students who completed the course, we demonstrated:

• A 12.8-point increase in mental health literacy scores

• Statistical significance of p < 0.0001

• An effect size greater than 1.0 – indicating a very large practical impact

These results underscore that evidence-based, trauma-informed mental health literacy training can meaningfully impact how future physicians understand and address mental health.

Why Mental Health Literacy Matters

Medical students face staggering mental health challenges. Recent meta-analyses show prevalence rates of 28% for depression, 33.8% for anxiety, 44.2% for burnout, and 11.1% for suicidal ideation among medical students. In response, the American Medical Association has called for medical schools to:

1. Create mental health awareness and suicide prevention programs

2. Offer proactive intervention for at-risk students

3. Address mental health stigma

Our SMHL course for medical students directly addresses all three of these priorities through a peer resiliency model backed by nearly 20 years of mental health literacy research and practice. We believe that improving mental health literacy could have a profound impact on medical student health and on the health of their patients.

The SMHL Course: Evidence-Based and Humanistic

The course evaluated in this study consists of four comprehensive modules featuring over 130 peer-to-peer documentary-style videos covering:

• Part One: Mental health literacy framework, stigma reduction, therapy and treatment options, and mindfulness-based approaches

• Part Two: Medical student-specific anxiety and stress management, depression, ACEs and trauma

• Part Three: The nervous system's response to stress, suicide prevention, and athlete mental health

• Part Four: Eating disorders, prevention and resilience, and mindful eating for medical students

What makes SMHL unique is our foundation in public health science and adherence to primary prevention (universal support). Each module serves as a "toolkit" for improving mental and emotional wellness, made user-friendly and applicable through peer stories of resilience and strength, combined with rigorous interviews with neuroscientists, clinicians, and researchers.

As our Scientific Advisor Dr. Stephen Hinshaw notes: "If we can understand and empathize with mental illness and humanize it, that's getting close to the magic bullet for reducing stigma."

6+ Year Partnership with VCOM

This research represents over six years of collaboration with VCOM, culminating in a program specifically adapted for the unique challenges of osteopathic medical education. We're excited to share our full findings with osteopathic medical educators from across the country and to continue advancing the conversation about mental health literacy in medical education.

The SMHL / medical student research team includes:

• Duke Biber, PhD

• Natalie Fadel, PhD

• Robyn Hussa Farrell, MFA

• Tim Farrell

• Ed Magalhaes, PhD

• David Redden, PhD

• Lindsey Ridgeway, PhD

• Alexis Stoner, PhD

We're deeply grateful to our partners at VCOM for their collaboration, vision, and commitment to supporting the whole student.