Congratulations to Kathy on completing her corrections and submitting the final thesis for the award of her PhD. Kathy’s thesis was entitled “An Investigation of Self-Structure, Social Identity and Norms in Medical Student Wellbeing” and several papers have already come out of this line of work. Kathy’s PhD is part of our “Prevalence to Process” project.
The thesis explores the unique issues for wellbeing facing medical students, what can be learned from applying the broader social psychology literature on self, identity and wellbeing, and what, in turn, can be learned from exploring the particular experience of medical education.
Several papers have already been published from Kathy’s thesis, including:
- Our general model and discussion of the paradoxes faced by medical students (Medical Education, 2014);
- A preliminary exploration of the role of identity and norm factors (Perspectives on Medical Education, 2014); and
- Showing that the impact of education related stressors do have an impact on medical student wellbeing over and above the additional general life-stressors that they also face (Teaching and Learning in Medicine, 2014).
The final study from Kathy’s thesis involved 330 medical students from Australia, New Zealand, and assorted medical schools in Europe and Asia. The paper is still in preparation after collecting some similar comparison data from Psychology students.
We were very grateful for the assistance of representatives from AMSA and NZMSA for making our study known to a wide group of medical students. The results from this study have informed our ongoing thinking around these issues and we hope will be published in due course.