ABSTRACT
It has been observed that medical discourse is monological, largely omitting the patient's voice. Another relatively neglected voice is that of the medical student, especially as they attempt to reflect on and make sense of the process of medical education. Increasingly, medical students are being encouraged to engage in written reflection as a means of processing their experiences, to achieve additional personal and clinical insight, and even at times as a kind of healing from the pressures and strains of training. Patients and medical students write about perturbing and taxing experiences. Students are sometimes caught between their desire to learn and their horror at what they are witness to, the largely unacknowledged reality that learning in medicine is filled with moments of revulsion, shame, doubt, and meaningless intervention. Students may also write to reassure themselves, a kind of self-soothing. Writing is not only or even primarily about the self, although it is inevitably filtered through the self.
