Reflection on near-peer shadowing program: impact on operating room student’s perception of their future profession

BACKGROUND: Reflection is a key element in learning from observation and experience of future profession’s roles and responsibilities in clinical encounters. Moreover, reflection helps students cope with the challenges, complexities, and uncertainties of professional development. Students’ written reflections on clinical exposure offer valuable information, and their analysis provides instructors with invaluable insight into students' experiences. This study evaluated Operating Room students’ written reflections on their first clinical exposure experiences towards their future profession through the shadowing program. METHODS: This study was a qualitative analysis on Operating Room freshmen’s reflections in the undergraduate program of Zahedan and Zabol University of Medical Sciences in Iran. After the shadowing program, all participants were asked to write an unstructured written reflection, and these fifty written reflections were de-identified and independently analyzed‏ using the thematic analysis approach. RESULTS: Qualitative analysis extracted 10 subthemes and four main themes including (i) Moving towards the guiding realities of future profession, (ii) Discovering milestones of realizing professional identity, (iii) Managing the emotions affecting the perception of future profession’s desirability, and (iv) Excellence in professional growth and development. CONCLUSION: Reflecting on the experience of the shadowing program, the participants described being in the OR environment as a stimulating and valuable learning opportunity. Moreover, this experience helped improve their perception of future profession’s realities, as well as initiate realization of professional identity and planning for professional developments.