Postcards from our students-reflections on professionalism and ethics

✍ Scribed by David Neely; Eytan Szmuilowicz; Kathy Neely

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 110 KB
• Volume: 5
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1553-5592
• DOI: 10.1002/jhm.712

✦ Synopsis

During their junior medicine rotation, our students are asked to post to Blackboard (an online student forum) an anonymous essay about an issue of professionalism or ethics, either inspiring or troubling. In many ways, these vignettes are like postcards, written by visitors describing foreign cultures and norms. They represent a way for the students to debrief, but also provide an opportunity for us, as faculty, to reflect upon the way we practice and teach medicine. Many postings-like postcards from exotic or historic places-are inspiring stories of residents and faculty extending themselves for their patients. Unfortunately, unlike typical postcards, there are also essays that are troubling or provoking and challenge us to consider how we could improve the professional and ethical environment on our teams.

In order to begin a learning process with our faculty and housestaff, we have presented a number of these anonymous essays at both faculty and housestaff Department of Medicine conferences as well as our monthly hospital Ethics conference. The goal of these conferences was to gather as a moral community to reflect on our students' experience and consider ways in which our day to day practice as attendings could be informed by what they tell us. In addition, the junior medicine site directors have a session each quarter with their junior students to review some of the most significant issues brought up by their essays.

Practically, these vignettes and conferences serve three main purposes:

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