Open AccessDeveloping Emotional Intelligence Through a Longitudinal Leadership Curriculum in UME: Combating the Decline in Medical Student Empathy
Author(s) -
Jeanne L Jacoby,
Amy Smith,
Deborah DeWaay,
Robert D. Barraco,
Marna Rayl Greenberg,
Bryan G Kane,
Jennifer Macfarlan,
Kevin Weaver,
Joann Farrell Quinn
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
medical science educator
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.257
H-Index - 13
ISSN - 2156-8650
DOI - 10.1007/s40670-020-01120-x
Subject(s) - depersonalization , empathy , burnout , excellence , medical school , curriculum , medical education , emotional intelligence , psychology , emotional exhaustion , scale (ratio) , center of excellence , clinical psychology , medicine , pedagogy , psychiatry , social psychology , political science , cartography , law , geography
We report on a novel curriculum (Scholarly Excellence, Leadership Experiences, Collaborative Training [SELECT]) in an allopathic medical school designed to prepare students to be physician leaders while remaining empathetic by combating burnout. SELECT students were surveyed annually. The survey contained the Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSE) and Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). In this cohort, empathy did not decrease, as measured by the JSE, and SELECT students' MBI Depersonalization burnout scores decreased after year 3. In summary, in this allopathic US medical school utilizing a novel curriculum, there was no significant decline in empathy after the third year of medical school. The SELECT program appears to mitigate the decline in empathy and increased Depersonalization burnout levels often seen at the end of the third year of medical school.