How does narrative medicine impact medical trainees’ learning of professionalism? A qualitative study

BACKGROUND: Narrative medicine (NM) is an approach involving narrative skills and is regarded as a model for medical humanism and effective medical practice. This study aims to explore how NM impacts medical trainees’ learning of professionalism during a clerkship in a Taiwanese clinical setting. METHODS: A qualitative interview study adopting a purposive sampling method was undertaken. Thirty medical trainees participated in this study, including five fifth-year medical students (MSs), ten sixth-year MSs, nine seventh-year MSs, and six postgraduate year (PGY) trainees. Thematic framework analysis was applied, and a modified realist evaluation approach was further used to analyse the interview data. RESULTS: We identified self-exploration, reflection, and awareness of professional identity as mechanisms explaining how NM impacted professionalism learning in our participants. Furthermore, empathy, communication, doctor-patient relationship and understanding patients were identified as the outcomes of the NM intervention for trainees’ learning of professionalism. CONCLUSIONS: NM facilitates medical trainees’ self-exploration, reflection, and awareness of professional identity, thereby affecting their learning of professionalism in clinical settings. Adopting NM as an educational intervention in undergraduate medical education could play an important role in professionalism learning, as trainees can thereby be supported to gradually develop self-exploration and reflection capabilities and heightened awareness of professional identity reflectively through a narrative process. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12909-021-02823-4.