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Can empathy be preserved in medical education?
OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to investigate changes in empathy during medical education, as well as to identify promoters and inhibitors of empathy and analyse their roles. METHODS: We used qualitative content analysis to examine 69 critically reflective essays written by medical students a...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
IJME
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7246122/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32311676 http://dx.doi.org/10.5116/ijme.5e83.31cf |
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author | Seeberger, Astrid Lönn, Annalena Hult, Håkan Weurlander, Maria Wernerson, Annika |
author_facet | Seeberger, Astrid Lönn, Annalena Hult, Håkan Weurlander, Maria Wernerson, Annika |
author_sort | Seeberger, Astrid |
collection | PubMed |
description | OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to investigate changes in empathy during medical education, as well as to identify promoters and inhibitors of empathy and analyse their roles. METHODS: We used qualitative content analysis to examine 69 critically reflective essays written by medical students as a part of their final examination at the end of the medical program. The essays were based on previous self-evaluations performed each term and represented retrospective reflections on their professional development. RESULTS: A majority of the students felt that their empathy did not decrease during medical education. On the contrary, many felt that their empathy had increased, especially the cognitive part of empathy, without loss of affective empathy. Many of them described a professionalisation process resulting in an ability to meet patients with preserved empathy but without being overwhelmed by emotions. They identified several factors that promoted the development of empathy: a multiplicity of patients, positive role models, and educational activities focusing on reflection and self-awareness. They also identified inhibitors of empathy: lack of professional competence and a stressful and empathy-hostile medical culture. CONCLUSIONS: Our analysis of these retrospective reflections by students suggests that empathy can be preserved during medical education, despite the presence of important inhibitors of empathy. This finding might be due to the presence of more potent promoters and/or to the fact that educational activities might result in a decreased susceptibility to empathy-decreasing circumstances. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7246122 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | IJME |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-72461222020-05-26 Can empathy be preserved in medical education? Seeberger, Astrid Lönn, Annalena Hult, Håkan Weurlander, Maria Wernerson, Annika Int J Med Educ Original Research OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to investigate changes in empathy during medical education, as well as to identify promoters and inhibitors of empathy and analyse their roles. METHODS: We used qualitative content analysis to examine 69 critically reflective essays written by medical students as a part of their final examination at the end of the medical program. The essays were based on previous self-evaluations performed each term and represented retrospective reflections on their professional development. RESULTS: A majority of the students felt that their empathy did not decrease during medical education. On the contrary, many felt that their empathy had increased, especially the cognitive part of empathy, without loss of affective empathy. Many of them described a professionalisation process resulting in an ability to meet patients with preserved empathy but without being overwhelmed by emotions. They identified several factors that promoted the development of empathy: a multiplicity of patients, positive role models, and educational activities focusing on reflection and self-awareness. They also identified inhibitors of empathy: lack of professional competence and a stressful and empathy-hostile medical culture. CONCLUSIONS: Our analysis of these retrospective reflections by students suggests that empathy can be preserved during medical education, despite the presence of important inhibitors of empathy. This finding might be due to the presence of more potent promoters and/or to the fact that educational activities might result in a decreased susceptibility to empathy-decreasing circumstances. IJME 2020-04-20 /pmc/articles/PMC7246122/ /pubmed/32311676 http://dx.doi.org/10.5116/ijme.5e83.31cf Text en Copyright: © 2020 Astrid Seeberger et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use of work provided the original work is properly cited. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ |
spellingShingle | Original Research Seeberger, Astrid Lönn, Annalena Hult, Håkan Weurlander, Maria Wernerson, Annika Can empathy be preserved in medical education? |
title | Can empathy be preserved in medical education? |
title_full | Can empathy be preserved in medical education? |
title_fullStr | Can empathy be preserved in medical education? |
title_full_unstemmed | Can empathy be preserved in medical education? |
title_short | Can empathy be preserved in medical education? |
title_sort | can empathy be preserved in medical education? |
topic | Original Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7246122/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32311676 http://dx.doi.org/10.5116/ijme.5e83.31cf |
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