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Narrative reflections from a night on trauma call: an innovative way to identify with student experiences

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Global Surgical Education - Journal of the Association for Surgical Education Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Background

Reflective practices can help learners process new clinical encounters. We sought to understand how clerkship students process exposure to intense experiences by assigning them to reflect on overnight trauma call.

Methods

Third year medical students participated in one overnight trauma call at our Level 1 trauma center during their required surgery clerkship and submitted written reflections to an online learning management system. Data were deidentified for qualitative analysis by two independent reviewers who identified common themes via qualitative content analysis.

Results

All student reflections from academic year 2021–2022 were analyzed. Primary themes identified were teamwork, novelty, patient humanity, and role-modeling.

Conclusions

Medical student reflections provided insight into the student experience of overnight trauma call. Descriptive data can identify which elements of trauma care are most impactful to students, which may guide educators in how to best support students during these novel clinical experiences.

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Data availability

The complete deidentified dataset can be requested through the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Alpert Medical School students and the Department of Surgery for their support with this project. We would also like to thank our peer reviewers for their insightful comments on our manuscript.

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, RI, USA

    Anneliese Mair

  2. Department of Surgery, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, RI, USA

    Kyle Kurland, Kenneth Lynch & Beth A. Ryder

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  1. Anneliese Mair
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Correspondence to Anneliese Mair.

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Mair, A., Kurland, K., Lynch, K. et al. Narrative reflections from a night on trauma call: an innovative way to identify with student experiences. Global Surg Educ 3, 15 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44186-023-00212-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s44186-023-00212-7

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