IAMSE Spring 2018 WAS Session 4 Highlights

In case you missed last week’s Webcast Audio Seminar (WAS) Session, here are the highlights of this session:

Project on the Good Physician: Using Life Stories to Study Medical Student Wellness
Presenters: Tania M. Jenkins, PhD and John D. Yoon, MD
March 29, 12 PM ET

  • The Project on the Good Physician is a longitudinal study of the moral and professional formation of the US physician.
  • How does one become and remain a good physician?
  • Researchers found high rates of reported burnout for medical students.
  • The life-story approach is unique because it examines the dynamic nature of stressors and resilience-building factors before and throughout the duration of medical school.
  • The study design included questionnaires and follow-up phone interviews. Secondary analyses were conducted on the qualitative data from the phone interviews which produced the following findings:
    • Stressors: Negative role models, difficult rotations, USMLE Step 1
    • Double-edged swords: (stressor and/or motivator) Financial concerns, personal life events
    • Stress-attenuating factors: Positive role models, support networks, faith and spirituality, passion (These strategies helped students reframe stressors as temporary.)
  • Studying life stories provides a window into how medical students make sense of their lived experiences and how they identify stressors and those factors that protect against stress.
  • Life stories explore the role of past individual challenges as sources of future resilience by creating an understanding of how lived experiences influence and mitigate stress.
  • For more details about this study, please refer to the Good Physician website: https://pmr.uchicago.edu/projects/research/good-physician

For more information on the next session or to register, please click here.