Not all stories of professional identity formation are equal: An analysis of formation narratives of highly humanistic physicians

- Highly humanistic narratives tell us about meaningful experiences.
- Participation in faculty development increased highly humanistic events.
- Faculty participants rediscovered and strengthened their empathy.
- They discovered enhanced capacities to perform compassionate actions.
- Reflecting on taking such actions reinforced faculty members professional identity.

ObjectiveWe sought to identify and define “highly humanistic” formation narratives, and understand how these events described, together with a reflective learning process, the professional development of physicians in a longitudinal faculty development program.MethodsQualitative analysis of twenty highly humanistic appreciative inquiry narratives selected from a total of 124 written by faculty members at the beginning and end of an eighteen month program at eight medical schools. [9,10] We employed the immersion/crystallization method of Borkan [20] to capture the rich meanings and emotional depth of the twenty narratives.ResultsHighly humanistic formation narratives described emotionally charged events in which the faculty writers provided humanistic care that went beyond what they had previously thought themselves capable of; benefited the patient, family or faculty member to a major extent; and reaffirmed or strengthened their professional values. Highly humanistic formation narratives were clustered at the end of our eighteen month curriculum.ConclusionsParticipation in faculty development for humanism may have increased the numbers of highly humanistic events by sensitizing and motivating faculty members to meet their patients' emotional needs.Practice implicationsOur paper describes a process whereby faculty members may achieve growth in their capacities to meet patients' needs.