Professional Identity Formation

Curriculum and Faculty Development

Professional Identity Formation: Lettered Medical Education (LET ME)

The Medical Education Center's LET ME program was launched in 2016 to complement the teaching of specialist knowledge and skills in medical studies with a range of courses that focus in particular on the personal and professional development of students on their way into the medical profession.

The program´s aim is to develop a teaching portfolio that does justice to professional identity development. This is methodically implemented in particular with the means of narrative medicine: the courses are designed on the basis of impulses from the entire field of cultural history in order to enable students to look "outside the box of medicine" and to open up a change of perspective on medical practice, its historical and social development and, above all, its personal significance for each individual medical student.

The LET ME program offers a separate elective every winter semester and is part of other elective and seminar courses with smaller units. As part of the interdisciplinary lecture, it belongs to the series "Introduction to clinical medicine: becoming a doctor, being a doctor". Together with the tutorial and the seminar "Suddenly in the clinic", it is part of a range of courses specifically geared towards the Practical Year and its horizons of experience. As an online offering, LET ME... touch base! is a Moodle platform with currently over 100 reflection exercises on the most diverse areas of medicine.

Furthermore, the "Life & Science" module was designed as a two-semester course for students of the TUM Elite Master's in Biomedical Neuroscience, which has been running since 2018. This is a first step towards anchoring the concept of professional identity development in a transdisciplinary way.

In the spirit of outreach beyond the university environment, the blog LET ME... find words for this! contains impulses from the live events as well as the interdisciplinary podcast LET ME ... talk about it!, in which scientists from various disciplines (architecture, game studies, literary studies, etc.) take a look at medicine. Our Instagram channel also provides information about current events and offers insights into our teaching formats: @lettered_medicine

Current projects

The "never again" of medicine

Interdisciplinary Summer School of the TUM School of Medicine and Health on the historically conscious development of professional identity in medicine

Funding: TUM Ideenwettbewerb
Term: 2025 - 2026
Contact persons: Karina Korecky and Sandra Apondo

Description:
The development of professional identity in medicine (Professional Identity Formation, PIF) describes an ongoing process of dealing with the professional, moral and social requirements of medical practice. The aim is to help future doctors "to think, act, and feel like a physician" (Cruess & Cruess) - in other words, to integrate the professional, ethical and personal dimensions of the profession.

The most recent report of the Lancet Commission on Medicine, Nazism, and the Holocaust (2023) emphasizes that this process also includes a historical dimension. It proposes expanding the concept of PIF to a "History-Informed PIF (HI-PIF)". A historically aware development of professional identity should help to recognize historical conditions and threats to medical ethical principles and to reflect on their significance for today's medicine and our professional self-image.

The project´s aim is to develop new formats, in close cooperation with teachers and students of medicine and other disciplines, that anchor historical reflection and ethical education in medical education in the long term (see also the further development of the National Competence-Based Learning Objectives Catalog NKLM 2.0). The focus is on questions regarding the significance of historical responsibility for today's professional self-image and ways to promote a reflective, responsible attitude. We plan an interdisciplinary workshop and a summer school, during which lectures, discussions and excursions will open up space for interactive and experience-based learning processes.

Students and lecturers from the TUM School of Medicine and Health, the LMU Faculty of Medicine and the cooperating clinics who are interested in participating, are cordially invited to do so. Get in touch!

Implicit prejudices in medicine

Funding: Foundation for Innovation in Higher Education, FR-357/2023
Term: 2024 - 2026
Contact persons: Lea Sturm, Laura Borgstedt and Sandra Apondo

Description:
Scientific findings show that implicit prejudices against patients, e.g. in the form of stereotypes and discrimination (e.g. in relation to gender, origin, socioeconomic status and weight) can have a negative impact on the quality of medical treatment - including incorrect diagnoses or inadequate therapies. Doctors also face discrimination from patients and colleagues, which can have a negative impact on job satisfaction. The innovative project is being implemented by further developing the curriculum in simulation-based training sessions in order to repeatedly make implicit prejudices visible and address their forms and causes. The measures´ effectiveness is evaluated on an ongoing basis. The goal is to raise awareness of the existence and serious effects of implicit prejudices in the medical field. The project´s aim is to make students aware of their own implicit prejudices as part of a longitudinal curriculum in the clinical part of studies and to promote behaviors that enable them to react appropriately to discriminatory behavior by colleagues and patients.

Completed projects

LET ME … touch base! Eine digitale Plattform zur Förderung professionsorientierter Reflexion und Resilienz in der Medizin(ausbildung)

Förderung: Ideenwettbewerb „Studienbezogene Verstärkung der Exzellenzstrategie“ – Wettbewerb 2019
Ansprechpartnerinnen und Ansprechpartner: Daniel Teufel, M.A., Katharina Mosene, M.A., Prof. Dr. med. Pascal Berberat

Beschreibung:
Um den professionellen und persönlichen Herausforderungen ihres Berufsalltags gewachsen zu sein, brauchen (angehende) Ärztinnen und Ärzte ein ausgeprägtes Reflexions- und Resilienzvermögen. Um dies zu fördern, gibt es bereits seit 2016 am TUM MEC das professionsorientierte Programm LET ME (kurz für Lettered Medicine/ Lettered Medical Education). Durch LET ME… touch base! sollen bestimmte Einheiten dieses Programms allen Studierenden und Dozierenden der medizinischen Fakultät sowie allen Ärztinnen und Ärzten des Universitätsklinikums in Form einer zeit- und ortsunabhängigen digitalen Plattform zugänglich gemacht werden.

Case-based Medical Professional Reasoning (CBMPR)

Projektleitung: Prof. Dr. M. Wijnen-Meijer
Projektverantwortlicher TUM MEC: Dr. med. Ch. Holzmann-Littig

Beschreibung:
Eine mittlerweile bewährte Methode in der medizinischen Ausbildung ist das sogenannte Case-based Clinical Reasoning (CBCR). Das bedeutet, dass die Studierenden anhand von Patientenfällen lernen, die Schritte des Argumentationsprozesses zu durchlaufen und zu einer Diagnose zu kommen. Oft erhalten die Studierenden zu Beginn nur begrenzte Informationen über den Patienten bzw. die Patientin, die später durch die Antworten des Patienten bzw. der Patientin, die Ergebnisse der körperlichen Untersuchung und andere diagnostische Informationen ergänzt werden. Die Tatsache, dass die Studierenden diese Art von Fällen regelmäßig in ihrer Ausbildung besprechen, hilft ihnen dabei, in der klinischen Praxis schnellere und bessere Diagnosen zu stellen.

Aber in der Berufspraxis von Ärztinnen und Ärzten sind nicht nur klinische Faktoren relevant. Auch Aspekte wie Ethik, Führung, Medizinrecht und Patientensicherheit müssen beim Umgang mit und der Beratung von Patientinnen und Patienten berücksichtigt werden. In diesem Projekt wollen wir daher Case-based Medical Professional Reasoning (CBMPR) entwickeln und umsetzen.

Selbstwirksamkeit als Kernkompetenz des 21. Jahrhunderts

Förderung: „Ideenwettbewerb – Studienbezogene Verstärkung der Exzellenzstrategie“ der TUM
Laufzeit: 2021-2022

Associated publications

Assoziierte Publikationen

Jedlicska, N., Rossmanith, C., Lichtenberg, S., Srnová, D., Wijnen-Meijer, M., Gartmeier, M., Berberat, P. O. (2024).
‘You also have to let people go’ – Effects of formative experiences with dying and death on medical trainees’ attitudes.
Medical Science Educator, 34, 1059–1069. DOI:10.1007/s40670-024-02090-0

Albrecht, F., Lutz, G., Atzeni, G., Berberat, P. O., Matcau, P., Jedlicska, N., Kiessling, C. (2024).
Insights into the meaning of medical students’ studies. An online survey at two medical faculties.
GMS Journal for Medical Education , 41(4). Doc45. DOI:https://doi.org/10.3205/zma001700

Olm, M., Roos, M., Hapfelmeier, A., Schneider, D., Gensichen, J., Berberat, P. O., Schneider, A. (2022).
Bedeutung der Lernumgebung und Reduzierung von Burnout in der stationären Weiterbildung – Analyse des Kompetenzzentrums Weiterbildung Allgemeinmedizin Bayern (KWAB).
Zeitschrift für Evidenz, Fortbildung und Qualität im Gesundheitswesen (ZEFQ). Available online 8 February 2022. DOI:10.1016/j.zefq.2021.12.001

Teufel, D., Berberat, P. O. (2021).
Eine gebührende Aufteilung des Stimmlichen. Polyphone Bewusstseinsentwicklung im Medizinstudium.
In J. Genz, & P. Gévaudan (Hrsg.), Polyphonie in literarischen, medizinischen und pflegewissenschaftlichen Textsorten (S.127-139). Göttingen: V&R unipress.