Narrative Medicine Rounds: Promoting Student Well-Being during the Third Year of Medical School

Narrative medicine allows physicians and other health providers to share stories and reflect on the practice of medicine. Through the process of reflection and shared storytelling, narrative medicine may promote strategies for well-being and the prevention of physician burnout. Designed to foster skills to promote physician wellness, the required narrative medicine rounds activity during the family medicine clerkship at the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine at Florida International University includes a written assignment and a small group session, during which students share their stories with their peers.

During the 2018-2019 academic year, a postsession survey asked students to identify strategies learned in the session that could be applied to future patient care and personal well-being; a thematic analysis of students' responses was conducted using inductive coding. Likert-style questions asked whether students learned something about themselves in this session, believed that they would write in the future, and understood the value of discussing significant patient encounters with peers.

Identified themes for strategies for patient care fell into two categories: approaches to improve the patient care experience and methods for reflecting on patient interactions. Themes for strategies for future well-being fell into three categories: strategies to promote mental health, changes to interpersonal interactions, and self-reflection. Most students "strongly agreed" or "agreed" that this session taught them something about themselves and showed them the value of discussing significant patient encounters with peers, and that they would be likely to write about patient cases in the future.

There was significant overlap in the themes related to strategies for personal well-being and those for patient care. Students were able to identify multiple, specific strategies to promote their own future well-being. These findings suggest that even a brief narrative medicine session may have an impact on students' understanding of strategies to prevent burnout and improve future patient care.