Abstract

Medical students gather lessons from what they observe and experience in the hospital and the clinic. The daily, generally undocumented events constitute significant formative influences on the developing identities of these nascent physicians. These experiences shape the students' attitudes towards their patients, help form their own identities, and affect their confidence in their chosen profession. And yet, these critical pedagogical forces rarely come to the attention of their teachers, who remain unaware of the powerful formative features of the clinical learning environment. As a result, attending physician-teachers fail to...