Formalized Storytelling in Emergency Medicine

Storytelling is an effective tool for medical education. The authors describe a formalized storytelling program for physicians. A conceptual model is proposed for why storytelling events are an effective modality across the domains of reflective practice, professional development, and physician wellness. Formalized storytelling is a novel strategy for professional development in medicine. In this paper, we describe a storytelling program for emergency physicians and propose a conceptual model for why storytelling events are an effective way to address the imperatives of reflective practice, professional identity development and physician wellness. Since 2015, groups such as Airway-Stories have held events for emergency physicians to help them relate and reflect on stories told by colleagues in a relaxed setting. These storytelling events are live forums in which physicians can share stories about experiences of patient care with an audience of their peers. The events were initially held at local venues in order to create physical and emotional distance from the clinical workplace, but have since proliferated to include many academic emergency medicine conferences and, during Covid-19 lockdowns, international videoconferences. Participants have primarily included emergency medicine faculty and residents, though more recently; these events have integrated other disciplines and health professions in medicine. The narrative topics span the breadth of clinical scenarios and have provided a forum for reflection in a group setting. The stories from these events have involved expressions of pride, humor, gratitude, as well as sadness and regret, along with a variety of authentic emotions that are otherwise not given expression in a formal curriculum or during physician meetings or conferences. Given the unscripted nature of these events, it has been somewhat surprising that the narratives have almost without exception manifested professional virtue and evinced the core humanistic values of medicine. There have been few if any stories with cynical or demoralizing themes. This observation has led us to believe that formalized storytelling events are a way to tap into these positive narratives and that they hold promise in supporting medical professionalism.