Impact of interpersonal relations on learning and development of professional identity: A study of residents' perceptions.
OBJECTIVES
Informal learning includes all occurrences during one's life when learning is not deliberate. Prior research on informal learning in healthcare contexts examined learning happening outside of the formal curriculum, yet still in the workplace. This study explores residents' perceptions about extracurricular factors outside of the workplace that contribute to their learning and development of professional identity, whether interpersonal relations are recognised as such factors, and positive and negative impacts of interpersonal relations.


METHODS
In this qualitative study, all 21 residents in our Emergency Medicine programme were asked, in a web-based survey with open-ended questions, to identify extracurricular sources outside of the workplace perceived as contributing to their learning and professional identity development, and list positive and negative impacts of interpersonal relations outside of work on learning and identity development. Themes were extracted through content analysis of the narrative responses. Two reviewers coded all data.


RESULTS
Thirteen (62%) residents identified 37 factors grouped under five themes: learning activity, role modelling, support, non-clinical academic roles, and social interactions. Interpersonal relations were perceived as having positive and negative impacts, including creating support, positive role modelling and mentoring, increasing concrete learning, as well as lapses in teaching skills, deficits in professional role training, and loss of personal time.


CONCLUSIONS
Several extracurricular factors outside of the workplace contribute to resident learning and identity development, including interpersonal relations, which have positive and negative impacts. The most often noted negative impact of interpersonal relations outside of work between residents and faculty related to perceived lapses in teaching skills.
['Blouin|Danielle|D|0000-0002-5448-8326']
D000328:Adult D004503:Education, Medical, Graduate D004635:Emergency Medicine D005260:Female D006801:Humans D007396:Internship and Residency D007398:Interpersonal Relations D008297:Male D010465:Perception D010820:Physicians D011364:Professional Practice D036301:Qualitative Research D012933:Social Identification D013337:Students, Medical D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires D000078329:Workforce
interpersonal relations learning emergency medicine education qualitative research