Abstract
Objectives: To detect how the positive and negative determinants of current medical education system during undergraduate and post graduate trainings affect the physicians’ empathy. Material and Methods: This is a questionnaire based cross sectional observational study conducted after taking permission from the institutional ethics committee. All the practicing medical professionals belonging to different specialities were included in the study. For each questionnaire item, they were asked to respond either yes / no. Data was interpreted as percentage of acceptance and rejection. Results: 70% physicians believed that present medical education system is helpful in developing empathy still 80% were in favour of conducting classes on empathy during the medical education. 80% agreed to all the positive determinants of development of empathy while 40 % agreed to all the negative determinants of empathy. Conclusion: In present setup though empathy is not included in medical curriculum but the assumed positive determinants of empathy during the under and post graduate training seems to be cultivating empathy in our socio-responsive physicians. Keywords: Empathy, Practicing physicians, Medical education system, Healthcare relationships.
Highlights
Empathy has important role in the patient care and it has strong positive effect on patient’s health outcome.[1]
Total 120 practicing medical professionals including emphasis and time given to teach the empathic response 72 (60%) males and 48 (40%) females with age varying in undergraduate training, postgraduate training and between 32-62 years were recruited in the study
Physicians agreed that medical education should aim to develop clinical empathy. 80% accepted that there should be classes on empathy and 95% believed that good teachers and lectures are helpful in developing empathy
Summary
Empathy has important role in the patient care and it has strong positive effect on patient’s health outcome.[1]. Various studies conducted so far relating physician’s empathy and behaviour towards patients and their clinical outcomes have shown multiple positive effects. These studies have shown that clinical empathy enhances patient satisfaction, comfort, and trust.[4,5] In current scenario of medical education empathy is undervalued and under-taught. Recent studies have shown that empathy can be significantly increased by teaching, if focus is embedded in students’ experiences with patients.[6,7] Different medical education associations and other professional organisations in several countries pharmacology at a tertiary care teaching hospital. Participants were informed and explained the purpose of the study and asked to submit the filled questionnaire form if they agree to participate.
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