Practicing Confidence: An Autoethnographic Exploration of the First Years as Physicians

Phenomenon: Every year is heralded with a cohort of newly-minted medical school graduates. Through intense residency training and supervision, these learners gradually develop self-assurance in their newfound skills and ways of practice. What remains unknown, however, is how this confidence develops and on what it is founded. This study sought to provide an insider view of this evolution from the frontline experiences of resident doctors. Approach: Using an analytic collaborative autoethnographic approach, two resident physicians (Internal Medicine; Pediatrics) documented 73 real-time stories on their emerging sense of confidence over their first two years of residency. A thematic analysis of narrative reflections was conducted iteratively in partnership with a staff physician and a medical education researcher, allowing for rich, multi-perspective input. Reflections were analyzed and coded thematically and the various perspectives on data interpretation were negotiated by consensus discussion. Findings: In the personal stories and experiences shared, we take you through our own journey and development of confidence, which we have come to appreciate as a layered and often non-linear process. Key moments include fears in the face of the unknown; the shame of failures (real or perceived); the bits of courage gained by everyday and mundane successes; and the emergence of our personal sense of growth and physicianship. Insights: Through this work, we - as two Canadian resident physicians - have ventured to describe a longitudinal trajectory of confidence from the ground up. Although we enter residency with the label of 'physician,' our clinical acumen remains in its infancy. We graduate from residency still as physicians, but decidedly different in terms of our knowledge, attitudes, and skills. We sought to capitalize on the vulnerability and authenticity inherent in autoethnography to enrich our collective understanding of confidence acquisition in the resident physician and its implications for the practice of medicine.