“The wounded healer” (TWH) is an innovative method of pedagogy that blends art with science that is delivered by an award-winning doctor with first-hand experience of a mental health condition. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of TWH at reducing stigma from healthcare professionals and students towards their peers with a mental health condition.

TWH has been delivered to more than 30,000 people in 9 countries on 5 continents worldwide and has been integrated into the medical school curricula of 4 UK universities. TWH also featured in the 2015 iMed Congress in Lisbon, Portugal, the largest medical student congress in Europe (n=1000).

We conducted a cross-sectional, mixed-methods study on participants who attended TWH in venues across the UK. Paper questionnaires containing stigma constructs with response items on a Likert-scale were hand distributed to participants. Free-text comments were subjected to thematic analyses.

Two hundred and nineteen over 256 participants recruited responded (85% response rate); 207/219 (94%) of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that TWH made them realise that medical students and doctors who experience mental distress can recover and achieve their goals.

Themes that emerged from analyses of free-text comments included, “inspirational”, “merits of blending art with science”, and “benefits of receiving a talk from a doctor with first-hand experience of a mental health problem”.

Our findings suggest that TWH might be effective at reducing stigma from healthcare professionals and students towards their peers with mental health problems. More robust research in this area is needed.