La formazione alle soft skills nel Corso di laurea in Medicina : uno studio qualitativo sulle scritture riflessive di un campione di studenti

Educating to soft skills is crucial in medical education. Among the diverse pedagogical strategies that could be chosen to develop those competences, which include both emotional and cognitive factors, reflective writing seems to have a prominent role. This paper reports a qualitative study based on the reflective writings of a group of medical students, which were written during a course focused on soft skills, addressed to 2nd year medical students (University of Milan, San Paolo Teaching Hospital). Writings reported students’ first encounter with the patient, in the ward, which was aimed at gathering his/her illness experience. Among the 101 collected writings, 70 were casually selected and later analyzed by three blinded researchers. In each writing, researchers evaluated the level of reflection (Moon scale) and looked for the presence of specific characteristics (selected from the REFLECT grid): the perception of patients’ emotions and the students’ own feelings, the reference to patient’s social context, the experienced difficulties in the relationship with the patient and lessons learned about the future medical professional role. Data analysis showed a quite high level of reflection, slightly greater in females than males. Considering patients’ gender and age, variations in students’ reflections were not registered. Students’ writings seem to be mostly focused on their own feelings, while reflection on patients’ emotions appears slightly inferior. Patients’ social context is the aspect on which students reflect more in depth, while they are less focused on the encountered difficulties and considerations about medical profession. Authors conclude that students’ response to this training can be considered good; they point out strengths and weaknesses of the educational project that could be useful for those who are planning educational activities similar to those reported in this study.