Literary exploration as a resource for professional development: Junior doctors’ experiences of shared reading

Studies have shown positive health outcomes from shared reading (SR) for various patient groups. In this article, we explore whether this applies to doctors as well by studying the dynamics of SR sessions and a subsequent participant focus group. Four SR sessions, with one short story and one or two poems each, were held with medical interns working at Skåne University Hospital, Sweden. A reflexive thematic analysis of the focus group and recorded sessions identified two themes. The first theme – the benefits of reading and thinking aloud together – covers SR as a joint endeavour, while the second theme – reading fiction as professional development – concerns the participants’ insights about their personal and professional development. We conclude that junior doctors can use SR as a tool to process clinical experiences, to fix their clinical gaze on the patient, and to recover energy in a stressful work environment.