EMPATHY IN MEDICAL EDUCATION: BE A RELATIVE BEFORE BECOMING A DOCTOR

Abstract

Introduction: Empathy is an important concept in medical disciplines as part of emotional intelligence and effective communication skills. “Be a relative before becoming a doctor” project is intended to be applied to medical school students who do not have contact with the patient at the preclinical stage which will enable students to internalize empathy. Materyal and method: Students were enabled to meet with the patient and their relatives within ethical rules and to see the diagnosis and treatment processes in the hospital. In the quantitative dimension of the research, a survey form containing the Jefferson Empathy Scale student version and the general empathy scale was applied before the practice, the Jefferson Empathy Scale student version and the general empathy scale were applied again after the practice. In the qualitative dimension of the research, students were asked to write reoprts based on their experiences, and the reports they wrote were treated as documents and analyzed. Results: The mean age of the students was 20.31±0.85 and 55.7% (n=64) were female students. There was a significant increase in the Jefferson empathy scale score after the empathy practice activity compared to before the empathy practice activity (p=0.0001). Toronto Empathy Scale score increases after the empathy practice activity, although there is no statistically significant difference compared to before the empathy practice activity (p=0.097). When the qualitative reports of students were examined, a total of 354 codes containing the expression of empathy were found. It was observed that empathy was most frequently expressed with waiting time, personal satisfaction and sadness about the disease. Discussion: As a result of this study, in which we evaluated empathy levels both qualitatively and quantitatively, we found that empathy levels increased and patient satisfaction. Fort his reason, we believe that our project is applicable in the educational curriculum of all medical faculties.