Grappling with complexity: Medical students’ reflective writings about challenging patient encounters as a window into professional identity formation

Hedy S. Wald, Jordan White, Shmuel P. Reis, Angela Y. Esquibel, David Anthony

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

65 Scopus citations

Abstract

Aim: Clerkship-specific interactive reflective writing (IRW)-enhanced reflection may enhance professional identity formation (PIF), a fundamental goal of medical education. PIF process as revealed in students? reflective writing (RW) has been understudied. Methods: The authors developed an IRW curriculum within a Family Medicine Clerkship (FMC) and analyzed students? reflections about challenging/difficult patient encounters using immersion-crystallization qualitative analysis. Results: The qualitative analysis identified 26 unique emergent themes and five distinct thematic categories (1. Role of emotions, 2. Role of cognition, 3. Behaviorally responding to situational context, 4. Patient factors, and 5. External factors) as well as an emergent PIF model from a directed content analysis. The model describes students? backgrounds, emotions and previous experiences in medicine merging with external factors and processed during student?patient interactions. The RWs also revealed that processing often involves polarities (e.g. empathy/lack of empathy or encouragement/disillusionment) as well as dissonance between idealized visions and lived reality. Conclusions: IRW facilitates and ideally supports grappling with the lived reality of medicine; uncovering a “positive hidden curriculum” within medical education. The authors propose engaging learners in guided critical reflection about complex experiences for meaning-making within a safe learning climate as a valuable way to cultivate reflective, resilient professionals with “prepared” minds and hearts for inevitable challenges of healthcare practice.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)152-160
Number of pages9
JournalMedical Teacher
Volume41
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Feb 2019
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

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