Stepping Up celebration highlights medical students’ creative approach to clinical rotations

As future clinicians, the Class of MD’27 students attending Sunday’s third annual Stepping Up Celebration will have a variety of tools at their disposal to help patients. Jay Baruch, MD, professor of emergency medicine and director of the Scholarly Concentration in Medical Humanities and Bioethics, however, argued in favor of using the sharpest instrument of all: their creativity.

“Patients are not data with faces. We must be sensitive to the act of them telling a story,” Baruch said. “They give you all of this information and you take that and form that into a narrative. What you do, or don’t, pay attention to are narrative decisions.”

As he delivered the Harriet W. Sheridan Lectureship, Baruch spoke about the use of creativity for exploring complex medical challenges and fostering empathy. Hundreds of friends and relatives joined the students at the event, held this year at Hotel Providence, to celebrate their transition from second to third year and the shift from classroom to clinical learning.

Baruch drew from his own early experience, looking back on time off from school and his attempts to write a novel with equal parts humor and insight. While he may have called his novel “bad,” exercising his writing skills helped him deal with adversity in an emergency room, he said.

“I wasn’t trained in uncertainty,” he said. “Patients’ bodies didn’t read the same books I did.”

The ability to utilize a creative mind not only helps physicians find their own voice, it also grants a voice to patients, as many offer their own narratives divorced from the more analytical narratives that govern medicine. Baruch said understanding the anatomy of stories also strengthens physicians’ abilities to ask constructive questions, identify gaps or inconsistencies, and ultimately find where they fit in.

He encouraged the class to exercise their creativity in clinical settings as a means to give care and respect to their patients’ experiences. He said that, while their responses and how they frame certain narratives aren’t going to be perfect, it’s the effort that matters. 

“It’s not about you,” Baruch said. “One of the most profound things we can do is listen to and legitimize patients’ stories.”

B. Star Hampton, MD, senior associate dean for medical education, and Roxanne Vrees ’98 MD’03 RES’07, associate dean for student affairs, offered congratulatory remarks to the students as well.

“I truly feel gratitude for being able to work alongside you every day,” said Hampton.

Chase Penhallurick MD'27 said he was excited to dive into his clinical rotations.

“It seems like it’s going to be an intensive process, going from a basic schedule to intense hours and rotations, but I’m looking forward to it,” he said.

Megan Hoang '23 MD'27 is looking forward to learning about different specialities, and seeing not only what a day in the life of a clinician is like, but also what her own future will be.

“I’m definitely nervous, but I’m also excited,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about this for a long time so being able to finally go into clinics and care for patients is great.”