Transforming self-experienced vulnerability into professional strength: a dialogical narrative analysis of medical students ’ reflective writing

AbstractMedical students ’ efforts to learn person-centered thinking and behavior can fall short due to the dissonance between person-centered clinical ideals and the prevailing epistemological stereotypes of medicine, where physicians’ life events, relations, and emotions seem irrelevant to their professional competenc e. This paper explores how reflecting on personal life experiences and considering the relevance for one’s future professional practice can inform first-year medical students’ initial explorations of professional identities. In this narrative inquiry, we undertook a dialogical narrative analysis of 68 essays in which first-year medical students reflected on how personal experiences from before medical school may influence them as future doctors. Students wrote the texts at the end of a 6-month course involving 20 patient encounters, introduction to person-centered theory, peer group discus sions, and reflective writing. The analysis targeted medical students’ processes of interweaving and delineating personal and professional identities. The analysis yielded four categories. (1)How medical students told their stories of illness, suffering, and relational struggles in an interplay with context that provided them with new perspectives on their own experiences. Students formed identities with a person-centered orientation to medical work by: (2)recognizing and identifying with patients ’ vulnerability, (3)experiencing the healing function of sharing s...
Source: Advances in Health Sciences Education - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: research