{"title":"Doctors' life stories in undergraduate medical education: definition, key concepts and uses - a scoping review.","authors":"James Nixon, Helen West","doi":"10.1186/s12909-025-07960-8","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Stories are an integral aspect of everyday life, and within medicine and medical education a wide range of stories are told every day. These stories include patients' stories or stories from those who care for patients. Doctors share stories and do so for many reasons. This includes doctors' life stories, which we have defined for the purposes of this review as non-fiction stories told first-hand by doctors about their own experiences. When used in undergraduate medical education, these doctors' life stories allow students to explore, reflect on, and learn from aspects of clinical life they may not yet have experienced. The evidence on doctors' life stories is sparse however, and this review aimed to explore doctors' life stories within the context of undergraduate medical education.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>A scoping review methodology was utilised, informed by established methodological guidance and recommendations. A search of five databases, the grey literature, and a hand search of the references of the included articles was carried out. Data from included articles were then collated and analysed using descriptive numerical summary analysis and qualitative content analysis.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>A total of 4,978 articles were screened, and 48 articles were included. Included articles were published over a 33-year period, with a significant increase in the number of articles published in the last 10 years. The findings from this review show that doctors' life stories have been used in multiple key areas of undergraduate medical education and to achieve a variety of intended educational outcomes. The findings highlight a lack of conceptual clarity, evidenced by the range of terms used to describe doctors' life stories and the lack of a clear definition being described within the literature. To address this, the authors propose a definition to enhance conceptual clarity, complemented by a conceptual framework that provides a structured representation of the phenomenon.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>Doctors' life stories are an emerging topic area within undergraduate medical education and are used in areas that are crucial in supporting the development of medical students into doctors. This scoping review acts as a foundation to guide teaching practice and future research within this area.</p>","PeriodicalId":51234,"journal":{"name":"BMC Medical Education","volume":"25 1","pages":"1390"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2000,"publicationDate":"2025-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12512262/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"BMC Medical Education","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-025-07960-8","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background: Stories are an integral aspect of everyday life, and within medicine and medical education a wide range of stories are told every day. These stories include patients' stories or stories from those who care for patients. Doctors share stories and do so for many reasons. This includes doctors' life stories, which we have defined for the purposes of this review as non-fiction stories told first-hand by doctors about their own experiences. When used in undergraduate medical education, these doctors' life stories allow students to explore, reflect on, and learn from aspects of clinical life they may not yet have experienced. The evidence on doctors' life stories is sparse however, and this review aimed to explore doctors' life stories within the context of undergraduate medical education.
Methods: A scoping review methodology was utilised, informed by established methodological guidance and recommendations. A search of five databases, the grey literature, and a hand search of the references of the included articles was carried out. Data from included articles were then collated and analysed using descriptive numerical summary analysis and qualitative content analysis.
Results: A total of 4,978 articles were screened, and 48 articles were included. Included articles were published over a 33-year period, with a significant increase in the number of articles published in the last 10 years. The findings from this review show that doctors' life stories have been used in multiple key areas of undergraduate medical education and to achieve a variety of intended educational outcomes. The findings highlight a lack of conceptual clarity, evidenced by the range of terms used to describe doctors' life stories and the lack of a clear definition being described within the literature. To address this, the authors propose a definition to enhance conceptual clarity, complemented by a conceptual framework that provides a structured representation of the phenomenon.
Conclusion: Doctors' life stories are an emerging topic area within undergraduate medical education and are used in areas that are crucial in supporting the development of medical students into doctors. This scoping review acts as a foundation to guide teaching practice and future research within this area.
期刊介绍：
BMC Medical Education is an open access journal publishing original peer-reviewed research articles in relation to the training of healthcare professionals, including undergraduate, postgraduate, and continuing education. The journal has a special focus on curriculum development, evaluations of performance, assessment of training needs and evidence-based medicine.
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