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A Cross-sectional Measurement of Medical Student Empathy
Open accessAbstract
Background Empathy is important in the physician-patient relationship. Prior studies have suggested that physician empathy may decline with clinical training. Objective To measure and examine student empathy across medical school years. Design and participants A cross-sectional study of students at Boston University School of Medicine in 2006. Incoming students plus each class near the end of the academic year were surveyed. Measurements The Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy-Student Version (JSPE-S), a validated 20-item self-administered questionnaire with a total score ranging from 20 to 140. JSPE-S scores were controlled for potential confounders such as gender, age, anticipated financial debt upon graduation, and future career interest. Results 658 students participated in the study (81.4% of the school population). The first-year medical student class had the highest empathy scores (118.5), whereas the fourth-year class had the lowest empathy scores (106.6). Measured empathy differed between second- and third-year classes (118.2 vs 112.7, P < .001), corresponding to the first year of clinical training. Empathy appears to increase from the incoming to the first-year class (115.5 vs 118.5, P = .02). Students preferring people-oriented specialties had higher empathy scores than students preferring technology-oriented specialties (114.6 vs 111.4, P = .002). Female students were more likely than male students to choose people-oriented specialties (51.5 vs 26.9%, P < .001). Females had higher JSPE-S scores than males (116.5 vs 112.1, P < .001). Age and debt did not affect empathy scores. Conclusions Empathy scores of students in the preclinical years were higher than in the clinical years. Efforts are needed to determine whether differences in empathy scores among the classes are cohort effects or represent changes occurring in the course of medical education. Future research is needed to confirm whether clinical training impacts empathy negatively, and, if so, whether interventions can be designed to mitigate this impact.
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“Such studies of medical student empathy are limited in several important ways: they measure only the student's self-assessment of empathy; the comparisons involve students from single osteopathic and allopathic institutions that are not generalizable to the broader populations of osteopathic and allopathic medical students; and they do not provide measures of empathy that reflect actual patient En”
From Empathy in Medicine Osteopathic and Allopathic Physician Interpersonal Manner, Empathy, and Communication Style and Clinical Status of Their Patients: A Pain Registry–Based Study (2019) · cites this paper as [5]
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“Alternatively, another study of selfreported empathy found a significant difference in favor of osteopathic medical students, 4 but only among thirdyear students in comparison with an externally acquired control group.5”
From Empathy in Medicine Osteopathic and Allopathic Physician Interpersonal Manner, Empathy, and Communication Style and Clinical Status of Their Patients: A Pain Registry–Based Study (2019) · cites this paper as [5]
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“Comparative studies of empathy have focused on osteopathic and allopathic medical students.”
From Empathy in Medicine Osteopathic and Allopathic Physician Interpersonal Manner, Empathy, and Communication Style and Clinical Status of Their Patients: A Pain Registry–Based Study (2019) · cites this paper as [5]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Chen, D., Lew, R., Hershman, W., & Orlander, J.
- Affiliations
- Boston University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Chen, Daniel
- Venue
- Journal of General Internal Medicine
- Published
- 2007-07-26
- Volume
- 22
- Issue
- 10
- Pages
- 1434-1438
- ISSN
- 0884-8734 (ISSN-L)
- 1525-1497
- PMC
- PMC2305857
- OpenAlex
- W1974059841
- Cited by
- 547
- References
- 43
- Citations by year
- 2026: 12 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 32 · 2023: 32 · 2022: 35 · 2021: 46 · 2020: 48 · 2019: 35 · 2018: 35 · 2017: 35 · 2016: 41 · 2015: 39 · 2014: 35 · 2013: 30 · 2012: 29
- FWCI
- 5.25
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Journal of General Internal Medicine (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DigitalGeorgetown (Georgetown University Library) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Empathy and Medical Education
- Social Sciences › Education › Innovations in Medical Education
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Healthcare professionals’ stress and burnout
- Keywords
- physician empathy, medical students, specialty choice, gender differences, physician-patient relationship
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Analysis of Variance, Attitude of Health Personnel, Cross-Sectional Studies, Education, Medical, Undergraduate, Empathy, Female, Humans, Male, Probability, Surveys and Questionnaires, Sex Factors, Students, Medical, Time Factors
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