Facing uncertainty as a medical student--a qualitative study of their reflective learning diaries and writings on specific themes during the first clinical year.

OBJECTIVE: Tolerance of uncertainty related to the complex work is a major dimension of general practitioner's (GP) profession. Strategies for managing uncertainty have been studied among GPs but less is known about how medical students develop tolerance of uncertainty during their studies. The aim of this study was to investigate how the medical students experience uncertainty during their first clinical years and how their feelings develop with time as they progress from the 3rd year to the 4th year.

METHODS: The material consisted of 22 students' reflective learning diaries and writings on specific themes collected during the 3rd and 4th year of their medical studies. The analysis was performed using thematic content analysis. In this article we present the results related to the theme of uncertainty.

RESULTS: Uncertainty is a major cause of mental strain for medical students, particularly fear of making mistakes. Main themes related to facing uncertainty and found in the diaries and writings were insecurity of professional skills, own credibility, facing with the inexactness of medicine, fear of making mistakes, coping with responsibility, and tolerating oneself as incomplete and accepting oneself as a good-enough doctor-to-be. Common steps of development towards tolerance of uncertainty were found in diaries over a one-year time period as the students progressed in their clinical studies.

CONCLUSIONS: Reflective writing showed to be an effective means for the students of both expressing and dealing with uncertainty, both with the difficult and the pleasant feelings and the experiences the students had with their first patient contacts. It also gave some of them the means of self-reflection which they afterwards found worthwhile.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Reflective writing is powerful tool which medical students could use to facilitate their maturation process what comes to uncertainty during their first clinical year.