The 55-Word Story in the Pre-clinical Year Touches All Three Tenets of Professional Identity Formation

Abstract: The most successful medical schools in guiding professional identity formation (PIF) have learning environments that hold space for reflection, encourage positive role-modeling behaviors, and exemplify resilience through challenging times. Considering its popularity when used in residency training and more broadly in health care settings, especially in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we introduced a 55-word exercise to first-year medical students. We asked them and their small-group faculty facilitators to write a story based on an illness experience or clinical vignette using no more than 55 words. The exercise was meant to encourage students and faculty members to reflect on their own experiences, as well as the perspectives of patients and healthcare providers.

Positive feedback was generated from students over the three years since introduction of this exercise. Students endorsed the ease of assignment and unique opportunity to share their stories with their peers in small group. Faculty, who were also encouraged to participate in the exercise and share with the students in small group, found the activity innovative, engaging, and refreshing. The subject matter of the 55-word stories varied based on the author’s preference. Many students and faculty chose to submit their stories for publication in an online student-led journal. Both students and faculty members expressed an interest in continuing this practice in the years ahead. This exercise not only provided a platform for self-reflection and creative expression, but also served as a way to foster empathy and understanding, role-modeling and resilience among students and faculty.