The medical internship as a meaningful transition: A phenomenographic study

Abstract

Background The transition from student to doctor is often depicted as a struggle in the literature, and previous research has focused on interventions to minimise difficulties in transitioning from undergraduate to postgraduate training. In considering this transition as a potential transformative experience, we intend to produce new insights into how junior doctors experience the transition to clinical work. The aim of this study was to explore medical interns' conceptualisations of the transition from student to doctor through studying the Swedish medical internship, which serves as a bridge between undergraduate and postgraduate studies. The research question was formulated as follows: How do medical interns perceive the meaning of the medical internship? Methods The data were collected through in-depth interviews with 12 senior medical interns in western Sweden. The transcribed interviews were analysed using a phenomenographic approach, which resulted in four qualitatively varying ways of perceiving the meaning of the internship, organised hierarchically in a phenomenographic outcome space. Results The interns perceived the meaning of the internship as an opportunity to work and learn in an authentic setting (internship as in-service training) and in a protected environment (internship as a space). The internship guaranteed a minimum level of competence (internship as a quality marker) and allowed the interns to gain new insights into themselves and their world (internshi…