‘We’re like Spider-Man; with great power comes great responsibility’: Coaches’ experiences supporting struggling medical students

Abstract

Background

Medical students can experience a range of academic and non-academic struggles. Coaching is a valuable strategy to support learners, but coaches describe working with struggling learners as taxing. Transformative learning theory (TLT) provides insights into how educators grow from challenging experiences to build resilience. This study explores how coaches evolve as educators through supporting struggling students.

Methods

This qualitative study grounded in an interpretivist paradigm used interviews of longitudinal medical student coaches at two academic institutions. Interviews, using TLT as a sensitizing concept, explored coaches’ experience coaching struggling learners. We performed thematic analysis.

Results

We interviewed 15 coaches. Coaches described supporting students through multi-faceted struggles which often surprised the coach. Three themes characterized coaches’ experiences: personal responsibility, emotional response, and personal learning. Coaches shouldered high personal responsibility for learners’ success. For some, this burden felt emotional, raised parental instincts and questions about maintaining boundaries with learners. Coaches evolved their coaching approach, challenged biases, and built skills. Coaches learned to better appreciate the learner point of view and employ resources to support students.

Discussion

Through navigating learner struggles, educators can gain self-efficacy, learn to understand learners’ perspectives, and evolve their coaching approach to lessen their personal emotional burden through time.

Keywords:

• Coaching
• struggling learner
• faculty development

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the coaches who participated in this study. We also wish to thank the UCSF ESCape works in progress group for critical feedback on a draft of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

There are no known conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Martha J. Elster

Martha J. Elster MD, University of California San Francisco School of Medicine, San Francisco, California, USA.

Andrew S. Parsons

Andrew S. Parsons MD MPH, University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA.

Sally Collins

Sally Collins MA MSc, University of California San Francisco School of Medicine, San Francisco, California, USA.

Maryellen E. Gusic

Maryellen E. Gusic MD, Lewis Katz School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

Karen E. Hauer

Karen E. Hauer MD PhD, University of California San Francisco School of Medicine, San Francisco, California, USA.