Project Overview
This project evaluates the impact of pre-medical experiences, particularly medical scribing and assisting, on medical students’ learning, professional identity formation, and overall success. As medical knowledge rapidly expands, students face increasing pressure to develop competency beyond standardized test performance. Traditional pre-medical requirements, rooted in the 1910 Flexner Report, have remained largely unchanged, focusing heavily on the sciences while often overlooking essential skills such as communication, experiential learning, and research evaluation. With many students now entering medical school with clinical exposure through scribing or assisting, this study examines how these experiences influence confidence, competency, and professional development.
Data and Data Collection Overview
This study collected data through surveys, academic performance metrics, and qualitative reflections to assess the impact of pre-medical scribing and assisting on medical students’ learning and professional identity formation. The survey was conducted online in 2020 and distributed to first- and second-year medical students from three campuses of a multi-campus medical school, targeting those with and without prior scribing or assisting experience. A total of 244 students participated, providing self-reported data on confidence, competency, and perceptions of preparedness. Academic performance data, including standardized test scores, course evaluations, and clinical performance assessments, were analyzed to identify correlations between pre-medical experience and medical school success. These measures were obtained from office of medical education at the main campus of the medical school and are not eligible for further sharing. Additionally, qualitative reflections from students were collected through open-ended survey responses and focus groups, offering deeper insights into how scribing and assisting shaped their professional development. These combined data sources provide a comprehensive assessment of how pre-medical clinical exposure influences medical training outcomes and deepened the researchers understanding of the survey responses. These data were not authorized for sharing
Shared Data Organization
The data file shared here consists of the responses to a researcher- designed survey (Part 1) and the responses to a standardized professional identity survey called Professional Self Identity Questionnaire (PSIQ). To find a way to match responses from each participant in both surveys without collecting personally identifiable information, a unique code was developed for each respondent. In the researcher-designed survey (Part 1), this code is recorded in column K (Question #26) and in the Professionalism ID survey (Part 2), the code is recorded in column J (Question 37). The documentation files shared consist of the original informed consent used, the survey questionnaire, this Data Narrative and an administrative README file. |
