Personal illness narratives: using reflective writing to teach empathy

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Reflective Practice
• Empathy Development

Background:

• Reflective writing is key for medical student empathy.
• Current methods focus on clinical experiences, neglecting practitioner self-awareness.
• Physician-patient communication is influenced by embodied identities, yet physician physicality is often ignored in training.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe a personal illness narrative reflective writing exercise for second-year medical students.
• To assess the exercise's impact on eliciting, interpreting, and translating personal illness experiences.
• To evaluate the exercise's potential for increasing medical trainee empathy and self-awareness.

Main Methods:

• A reflective writing exercise on personal illness narratives was conducted in a medical student humanities seminar.
• Students shared and interpreted their own and colleagues' illness stories.
• Qualitative analysis of student evaluation comments was performed.

Main Results:

• The personal illness narrative exercise was emotionally challenging but well-received by students.
• Participants highly recommended the exercise for peers and residents.
• The exercise provided a medium for students to process personal illness experiences.

Conclusions:

• This reflective writing exercise can be integrated into medical curricula to foster empathy.
• Sharing personal illness experiences may help trainees bridge the mind-body dichotomy in medicine.
• The exercise promotes more empathic and self-aware medical practice.