Georgina Stephens
Tell us about yourself?
I completed a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery at Monash University, and following this worked as a junior doctor at hospitals in Australia and New Zealand. I returned to Monash in 2017 as an Assistant Lecturer in the Centre for Human Anatomy Education (CHAE), which sparked my interest in medical education research and led me to undertake my PhD. I am particularly interested in qualitative research methodologies.
Tell us about your research project?
I am exploring uncertainty tolerance (UT) in medical students. Low UT in doctors is linked to negative outcomes in healthcare, including increased healthcare costs, and burnout in doctors. Yet little is understood about whether education can aid students to develop UT. I am using qualitative research approaches to explore students’ experiences of uncertainty, including:
- The aspects of healthcare and education that are experienced as uncertain,
- Student responses to uncertainty across their cognition, emotion and behaviour, and
- Factors that alter students’ experiences of UT.
Hopefully, these results will enable curriculum development to better prepare students for the uncertainty of medical practice.
What are you most proud of since starting your PhD?
The publication of my first PhD paper in Advances in Health Sciences Education.
What is your favourite anatomical structure and why?
The common carotid artery and branches thereof, because I find the dissection so beautiful.
What do you enjoy doing outside of your research?
Anything involving good food and wine.
What advice would you give to incoming PhD students in the Centre?
Read. Read often, read widely, read research articles, read textbooks, read for study, read for pleasure. Many of my research problems have been solved this way.