Doha, Qatar: Medical education should go beyond technical skills by giving students greater opportunities to hear honest accounts of uncertainty, setbacks and challenges from experienced clinicians, according to a new paper published in the latest issue of the Qatar Medical Journal (QMJ).
The paper calls for narrative mentorship to be formally incorporated into simulation-based medical education, arguing that clinicians’ personal stories can help medical students and trainees develop professional identity, resilience, ethical reasoning and confidence in dealing with uncertainty.
The approach, which uses personal stories from experienced clinicians to encourage reflection and dialogue, could complement traditional competency-based medical education and address aspects of professional development often overlooked in formal curricula.
The paper titled “Integrating narrative mentorship into simulation-based medical education to support professional identity formation,” highlights the growing recognition that becoming a doctor involves more than acquiring technical and clinical skills. Learners also develop their understanding of who they are as healthcare professionals through experiences, relationships and the ‘hidden curriculum’, the informal lessons about professional behaviour, values and expectations conveyed through the training environment.
The authors define narrative mentorship as a reflective mentoring approach in which experienced clinicians intentionally share personal clinical experiences, including uncertainty, failure, ethical challenges and the process of finding meaning in difficult situations. Unlike conventional mentorship, which often focuses on career advice, performance and skills development, narrative mentorship uses storytelling as a way of modelling professional values and creating opportunities for reflective learning.
The paper points to a national educational session at ITQAN, Hamad Medical Corporation’s national simulation and clinical skills centre, where more than 700 students attended during a national medical education symposium. The strong attendance reflected significant interest among learners in mentorship and professional development.
During the session, the keynote speaker moved beyond conventional institutional messaging to speak candidly about challenges faced early in his career, including uncertainty and the need for resilience. Rather than presenting professional success as a straightforward journey, his account offered learners an honest perspective on the difficulties that can accompany medical training and clinical practice.
The response from students was particularly revealing. Their questions focused on issues such as belonging, coping and identity formation — concerns that, the authors note, are not always explicitly addressed within competence-based curricula.
Such narratives can challenge assumptions embedded in the hidden curriculum, particularly the perception that successful clinicians must always appear confident, composed and certain. By openly discussing vulnerability and uncertainty, senior clinicians can help learners recognise that such experiences are part of professional development rather than signs of inadequacy.
