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“It Captures The Rawness And Reality”: Exploring Student Emotion During An Illness Narrative Assignment In Doctor Of Physical Therapy Curricula, Gina Gang, Jeffrey Gang

Health Professions Education

Purpose. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore first year doctor of physical therapy student emotions when completing a first-person illness narrative assignment within a required Whole Person Care course early in curricula. Method: First-year physical therapy students from one physical therapy program completed an illness narrative assignment of a known individual with an illness experience using a first-person perspective. Qualitative data from students’ reflections from the open-ended prompt “How did you feel when writing the illness narrative?” were analyzed and coded retrospectively. Results: Diverse emotions organically emerged from the qualitative data. Coded emotions correlated with 13 of …