I was reading one of Graham's older posts at Over My Med Body! - See One, Say One, Teach One from May 2004. Graham, a medical student was sharing an important insight he had as he suddenly realized the power he wielded as a physician baring bad, life-changing tidings to a patient. Graham had a BFO (Blinding Flash of the Obvious) and he wrote about it in his blog.
One of the most powerful learning tools I've ever experienced was a monthly assignment I had during my two years of graduate school. Each month, my assignment was to write a five page reflective essay applying what I was learning in graduate school to what I was doing in real life.
During the second year, we were required to share our essays with the entire cohort and were then required to make written comments on at least two classmates' papers. In addition to learning to coherently articulate my thoughts, I learned to write constructive commentary and to accept and value feedback, which furthered my learning even more.
These papers were not about learning to write like an English major (I can feel some of you shuddering across the Internet at the idea of writing anything more in depth than an op note.) They taught me to think about what I was reading, studying and hearing in lectures, to apply it to what I was doing in real life and to express my thoughts in a way that others could understand.
I'm glad some med students are blogging. It's a fabulous form of self-reflection. But what I would really love to see is reflective writing integrated into a medical school curriculum. It would be a powerful way for students to capture their emotions and experiences before they get lost forever in the mountains of information and reams of data that must be assimilated during medical training.
In my opinion, we'd be taking a major step toward graduating emotionally intelligent doctors who, having gone through the exercise of tying their thoughts, feelings and experiences to what they had learned, would be more in touch with themselves and their patients. What's not to like about that?
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