Storytime as a vehicle for reflective practice

[摘要] A recent feature of the British Christmas TV scheduling is the animated adaptation of children’s books by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. A couple of winters ago a GP discussion group used this creative duo’s work as trigger-narratives for professional reflection.WHAT WE DID Two years ago, before COVID-19 limited our sociability, our informal GP ethics group devised an exercise where each person read and then reflected on a nursery story. We each spent 5 minutes looking at our chosen story, then summarised it and related the ‘moral’ to our practice and professional life. We hoped that the ensuing discussion would generate useful reflections — nursery stories and fairy tales are suited to this exercise because they can be looked at in a couple of minutes leaving time for discussion. They also often have an explicit (or very clearly implicit) moral as the frame for the story.For the purpose of standardisation, we chose nursery stories aimed at a similar age range by the same authors. Story books by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler were ideal because they are readable within 5–10 minutes (for an adult), beautifully illustrated, and contain morals and themes that translate into our professional lives. We considered that some of the GPs already being familiar with them (for example, as parents) would not be a disadvantage — it would facilitate a summary and discussion.We put the books in an opaque bag and members of the group chose them at random. Mindful of our professional duties, we adopted a Chatham house rule of anonymity for any experiences we discussed.

[学科分类] 卫生学