Abstract
BackgroundThe management of emotions in the workplace is a skill related to the ability to demonstrate empathic behaviour towards patients; to manage emotional reactions in oneself and to lead others as part of a team. This ability has been defined as emotional intelligence (EI) and doctor’s EI may be related to communication skills and to patient satisfaction levels. This study reports on the use of two assessments of EI as part of a course on Personal and Professional Development (PPD) in a graduate medical school curriculum.MethodsFifty one graduate entry medical students completed an eight session course on PPD between December 2005 and January 2006. Students completed two measures of EI: self-report (EQ-i) and ability (MSCEIT V2.0) over a two year study period. The data gathered were used to explore the relationship between self-report and ability EI and between EI and student demographics, academic performance and change over time.ResultsAnalysis of the EI data demonstrated that self-report EI did not change over time and was not related to ability EI. Females scored higher than males on a number of self-report and ability EI scores. Self-reported self-awareness was found to deteriorate in males and females over time. High self-reported EI was found to be associated with poor performance on clinical competency assessments but with good performance on a number of bio-medical knowledge based assessments.ConclusionsThis report concludes that assessments of EI can be incorporated into a medical school curriculum as part of a PPD programme and that the concept of EI may be associated with performance in medical school.
Highlights
The management of emotions in the workplace is a skill related to the ability to demonstrate empathic behaviour towards patients; to manage emotional reactions in oneself and to lead others as part of a team
This study investigated the following research questions in a sample of graduate medical students: Does Emotional intelligence (EI) change over the course of medical training? Is there a gender difference in EI? Are self-report EI scores associated with ability EI scores? Is there a relationship between EI scores and academic achievement?
As the data were normally distributed, independent sample t-tests were conducted to compare the means of Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i) and MSCEIT V2.0 scales with regards to gender and age
Summary
The management of emotions in the workplace is a skill related to the ability to demonstrate empathic behaviour towards patients; to manage emotional reactions in oneself and to lead others as part of a team. The ability to demonstrate empathy is recognised to be an important emotional skill and studies of empathy in the medical student/trainee indicate that empathy deteriorates over the course of training and work [4,5,6,7]. The evidence that EI may be a factor in medical competency is indicated by a recent study which found that self-rated emotional functioning and ability scores were found to be associated with scores on assessments of communication and physical examination skills in a sample of graduate medical students, [19] and studies of non-medical third level students have proposed that EI may be related to academic ability [20,21,22]. Another study conducted at Peninsula graduate medical school UK, reported that the majority of students welcomed the opportunity to learn about EI and their self-rated emotional competencies [27] very few studies to date have reported on how to design training programmes to provide students with the opportunity to learn explicitly about their own EI and such training programmes are well established in the business world [28,29]
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