The role of narrative medicine program in promoting professional ethics: perceptions of Iranian medical students

Abstract

Narrative medicine (NM) is an educational tool that can be used to promote the professional competencies of medical students. This study aimed to investigate Iranian medical students’ perceptions of the first NM program offered in 2019.
 The study was conducted on 69 medical interns who participated in the weekly NM program that was part of the professional ethics course for two months. We used a questionnaire to determine medical interns' perceptions and personal attitudes toward NM. Three experts confirmed the validity of the questionnaire in Persian, and its reliability was verified by internal consistency (α = 0.879). The independent t-test was used to compare the differences in the total scores of students' perceptions. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS 23 software (P < 0.05).
 The response rate to the questionnaire was 95.65%. The results showed overall students' perceptions of the program were found to be positive. Furthermore, the scores showed a significant difference in terms of gender (P = 0.014), but none in terms of marital status (P = 0.936).
 According to the results, NM was effective in improving students’ reflections and their empathy with patients. Therefore, it is recommended to include NM in professional ethics education.

A Literature Review on Narrative Medicine Education

“…This interdisciplinary approach promotes introspection, adaptability, and a better understanding of patient encounters, in accordance with the broader objectives of medical education (Phelan, 2022). Furthermore, Daryazadeh et al (2022) demonstrated that narrative medicine education enhances medical students' professional competencies, fostering empathy and reflection skills, which aligns with the overarching objectives of medical education to cultivate well-rounded and ethical healthcare professionals.…”

The role of patients’ stories in medicine: a systematic scoping review

“…• Enhanced learning of empathy [111,125,127,128,135,138,145,149,150,[152][153][154][155][156][157][158][159][160][161][162][163][164][165][166] • Improved ability to understand, interpret, and engage with others [11,19,111,114,135,155,[167][168][169][170][171][172][173] • Enhanced patient-centred care [111] • Enhanced building of cultural sensitivity and contextual considerations [114,124,130,136,140,143,170,[173][174][175][176]…”

“…• Enhanced meaning making [11, 19, 22, 24-29, 173, 180, 182, 265-268] • Enhanced self-reflection [116,135,139,158,[269][270][271][272] • Enhanced professional identity formation [139,152,157,202,241,247,[273][274][275] Enhanced development of professional common culture [139,276] through:…”

Brief, Real-Time Reflections: An Efficient, Contextual, and Familiar Variation of Narrative Medicine: A Mixed Methods Analysis

“…Rita Charon states, "by rendering whole that which they observe and undergo, doctor-writers can reveal transcendent truths, exposed in the course of illness, about ordinary human life" and develop "deep and therapeutically consequential understandings of the persons who bear symptoms are made possible in the course of hearing the narratives told of illness" [7]. Evidence is strong that narrative curricula foster empathetic concern among health professions students [17][18][19][20][21] by allowing students to develop core skills necessary for empathy, including perspective-taking, valuing others, and humanizing patients [22]. Thus, narrative practice can lead to meaningful gains in professional development by giving students the space to consciously process the gap between the technical knowledge learned in medical school and the tacit knowledge learned through patient interactions and stories [23].…”