Emotionally Difficult Experiences Faced by Medical Students During Training

Purpose To investigate (1) emotions-triggering situations faced by medical students; (2) their prevalence across training; (3) whether they aroused student׳s emotions, and (4) whether students׳ reactions varied across training. Method A pilot study analysed 60 written reports from 4th-year medical students from the Federal University of Ceará, Brazil, regarding recent emotionally difficult training experiences. Six types of emotions-triggering situations were chosen. A diary of a fictitious student reporting each situation was prepared, with two different endings – either a neutral or an emotional development. In a web-survey, 188 medical students evaluated those diary-entries (3 in a neutral; 3 in an emotional version), rating how frequently they had encountered similar situations and the emotions triggered by the reading. Data were analysed using Chi-square, t-tests and ANOVA. Results Frequency of similar experiences depended on situation type (p<.001) varying across training in 4 of the 6 situations. All situations were emotion-triggering, regardless of whether students had or not experienced them before. A significant main effect of training showed that students at different phases reacted differently; at the clinical phase emotional arousal was higher than in clerkship for 2 situations. Discussion Awareness of situations considered emotionally difficult may provide information for the development of educational interventions that emotionally support medical students.