A Narrative Inquiry of Medical Students Experiences of Expulsion and Military Service

Abstract

The aim of this study was to use narrative inquiry to explore the experiences of medical students who faced expulsion, military service, and readmission, and their journeys of identity formation. Three medical students were recruited via snowball sampling, and each participant was interviewed twice. According to the sequence of experiences, their stories were summarized as follows: the process of being expelled, the military service experience and readmission process, and the present. Before all three students were expelled, they lived dissolute lives free of concern from the entrance examination and failed to cope well with dropping out. They felt that military experience had helped them develop interpersonal skills in the clinical setting and the strength to withstand a difficult crisis. Two students were motivated to become doctors after military service, but the other was not. They had reflected deeply over their unique experiences. The scars imprinted from their experiences became a means of stimulation, and they ultimately acquired the resilience and ability to accommodate for and counteract their weaknesses. This appears to have been an important influence on their identity formation. The narrations of their rare experiences can help medical educators more fully understand and support medical students through difficulties, specifically with regard to academic failure or expulsion. These findings may prompt medical professors to think about the kind of guidance or motivation that could help students before expulsion, rather than assuming that they are simply lacking academic ability.