As a PhD candidate at IMERR, I have studied the influence of negative emotions on medical trainees’ learning. Emotionally difficult situations are unavoidable in medical training. It is a period of intensive learning and if negative emotions triggered by those situations hamper learning, the opportunities for improving competence would not be used. It is therefore crucial to better understand this impact and assist trainees in regulating their emotions.

My journey in the field started by developing experimental studies to map those emotionally difficult situations during various phases of training, testing their effect on subsequential learning, and testing suitable emotion regulations interventions that would enhance learning opportunities, trainees’ well-being and ultimately their ability to offer appropriate care to their patients. As a clinical psychologist, I have been working with health professionals, witnessing their challenges and struggles in their professional and personal lives. Understanding how difficult situations that they face in the course of their training affects what they can gain from it is therefore closely related to all I have done in my professional life.