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Linguistic analysis of empathy in medical school admission essays

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to determine whether words used in medical school admissions essays can predict physician empathy. METHODS: A computational form of linguistic analysis was used for the content analysis of medical school admissions essays. Words in medical school admissions essays were c...

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Autores principales: Yaden, Mary, Yaden, David, Buffone, Anneke, Eichstaedt, Johannes, Crutchley, Patrick, Smith, Laura, Cass, Jonathan, Callahan, Clara, Rosenthal, Susan, Ungar, Lyle, Schwartz, Andrew, Hojat, Mohammadreza
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: IJME 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7882128/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32949231
http://dx.doi.org/10.5116/ijme.5f2d.0359
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author Yaden, Mary
Yaden, David
Buffone, Anneke
Eichstaedt, Johannes
Crutchley, Patrick
Smith, Laura
Cass, Jonathan
Callahan, Clara
Rosenthal, Susan
Ungar, Lyle
Schwartz, Andrew
Hojat, Mohammadreza
author_facet Yaden, Mary
Yaden, David
Buffone, Anneke
Eichstaedt, Johannes
Crutchley, Patrick
Smith, Laura
Cass, Jonathan
Callahan, Clara
Rosenthal, Susan
Ungar, Lyle
Schwartz, Andrew
Hojat, Mohammadreza
author_sort Yaden, Mary
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to determine whether words used in medical school admissions essays can predict physician empathy. METHODS: A computational form of linguistic analysis was used for the content analysis of medical school admissions essays. Words in medical school admissions essays were computationally grouped into 20 'topics' which were then correlated with scores on the Jefferson Scale of Empathy. The study sample included 1,805 matriculants (between 2008-2015) at a single medical college in the North East of the United States who wrote an admissions essay and completed the Jefferson Scale of Empathy at matriculation. RESULTS: After correcting for multiple comparisons and controlling for gender, the Jefferson Scale of Empathy scores significantly correlated with a linguistic topic (r = .074, p< .05). This topic was comprised of specific words used in essays such as "understanding," "compassion," "empathy," "feeling," and "trust." These words are related to themes emphasized in both theoretical writing and empirical studies on physician empathy. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates that physician empathy can be predicted from medical school admission essays. The implications of this methodological capability, i.e. to quantitatively associate linguistic features or words with psychometric outcomes, bears on the future of medical education research and admissions. In particular, these findings suggest that those responsible for medical school admissions could identify more empathetic applicants based on the language of their application essays. 
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spelling pubmed-78821282021-02-24 Linguistic analysis of empathy in medical school admission essays Yaden, Mary Yaden, David Buffone, Anneke Eichstaedt, Johannes Crutchley, Patrick Smith, Laura Cass, Jonathan Callahan, Clara Rosenthal, Susan Ungar, Lyle Schwartz, Andrew Hojat, Mohammadreza Int J Med Educ Original Research OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to determine whether words used in medical school admissions essays can predict physician empathy. METHODS: A computational form of linguistic analysis was used for the content analysis of medical school admissions essays. Words in medical school admissions essays were computationally grouped into 20 'topics' which were then correlated with scores on the Jefferson Scale of Empathy. The study sample included 1,805 matriculants (between 2008-2015) at a single medical college in the North East of the United States who wrote an admissions essay and completed the Jefferson Scale of Empathy at matriculation. RESULTS: After correcting for multiple comparisons and controlling for gender, the Jefferson Scale of Empathy scores significantly correlated with a linguistic topic (r = .074, p< .05). This topic was comprised of specific words used in essays such as "understanding," "compassion," "empathy," "feeling," and "trust." These words are related to themes emphasized in both theoretical writing and empirical studies on physician empathy. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates that physician empathy can be predicted from medical school admission essays. The implications of this methodological capability, i.e. to quantitatively associate linguistic features or words with psychometric outcomes, bears on the future of medical education research and admissions. In particular, these findings suggest that those responsible for medical school admissions could identify more empathetic applicants based on the language of their application essays.  IJME 2020-09-18 /pmc/articles/PMC7882128/ /pubmed/32949231 http://dx.doi.org/10.5116/ijme.5f2d.0359 Text en Copyright: © 2020 Mary Yaden 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
Yaden, Mary
Yaden, David
Buffone, Anneke
Eichstaedt, Johannes
Crutchley, Patrick
Smith, Laura
Cass, Jonathan
Callahan, Clara
Rosenthal, Susan
Ungar, Lyle
Schwartz, Andrew
Hojat, Mohammadreza
Linguistic analysis of empathy in medical school admission essays
title Linguistic analysis of empathy in medical school admission essays
title_full Linguistic analysis of empathy in medical school admission essays
title_fullStr Linguistic analysis of empathy in medical school admission essays
title_full_unstemmed Linguistic analysis of empathy in medical school admission essays
title_short Linguistic analysis of empathy in medical school admission essays
title_sort linguistic analysis of empathy in medical school admission essays
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7882128/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32949231
http://dx.doi.org/10.5116/ijme.5f2d.0359
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