The impact of emotionally challenging situations on medical students’ professional identity formation

Abstract

In their interactions with patients and health care professionals during work-based learning, medical students are known to experience emotionally challenging situations that can evoke negative feelings. Students have to manage these emotions. Students learn and develop their professional identity formation through interactions with patients and members of the healthcare teams. Earlier studies have highlighted the issues involved with processing emotionally challenging situations, although studies concerning learning and professional identity formation in response to these experiences are rare. In this study, we explored medical students’ experiences of emotionally challenging situations in work-based learning, and the impact these experiences had on forming medical students’ professional identities. We conducted an analysis of narrative data (n = 85), using a constructivist grounded theory approach. The narratives were made up of medical students’ reflective essays at the end of their education (tenth term). The analysis showed that students’ main concern when facing emotionally challenging situations during their work-based education was the struggle to achieve and maintain a professional approach. They reported different strategies for managing their feelings and how these strategies led to diverse consequences. In the process, students also described arriving at insights into their own personal needs and shortcomings. We consider this development of self-awareness and resulting self-knowledge to be an important part of the continuously ongoing socialization process of forming a professional identity. Thus, experiencing emotionally challenging situations can be considered a unique and invaluable opportunity, as well as a catalyst for students’ development. We believe that highlighting the impact of emotions in medical education can constitute an important contribution to knowledge about the process of professional identity formation. This knowledge can enable faculty to provide students with more effective and sufficient support, facilitating their journey in becoming physicians.

Personality portraits, resilience, and professional identity among nursing students: a cross-sectional study

“…Individuals may experience some psychological conflict during the construction process. However, some people are able to exercise self-control and adjust flexibly and are not easily dominated by negative emotions, which relies on psychological resilience [ 33 ]. Therefore, based on self-identity theory, the present study attempts to examine the relationship between personality portrait, resilience and professional identity from a person-centered perspective to lay a psychological foundation for enhancing nursing students’ professional identity.…”

När lärandet blir svårt: En forskningsöversikt om studenters upplevelser av känslomässiga utmaningar i undervisningssituationer

“…Det kan påverka motivationen positivt och man kan lära sig något om sig själv och sina reaktioner. Dessa insikter kan vara särskilt viktiga för studenter i professionsutbildningar där de i sitt kommande yrke ställs inför känslomässigt utmanande situationer (Harr & Moore, 2011;Joubert, 2021;Lindqvist et al, 2019;Liu et al, 2015;Lönn et al, 2023;Weurlander et al, 2019). Flera studier i forskningsöversikten rapporterar att studenterna vande sig vid exempelvis dissektioner och obduktioner och att de vid senare tillfällen inte upplevde samma obehag (Fortunato et al, 2018;Kotzé & Mole, 2013;Lamdin et al, 2012;Redwood & Townsend, 2011).…”