Can enriching emotional intelligence improve medical students’ proactivity and adaptability during OB/GYN clerkships?
Open accessAbstract
OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this pilot study was to examine our hypothesis that enriching workplace emotional intelligence through resident coaches could improve third-year medical students' adaptability and proactivity on the Obstetrics and Gynecology clerkship. METHODS: An observational pilot study was conducted in a teaching hospital. Fourteen 3rd year medical students from two cohorts of clerkships were randomly divided into two groups, and equally assigned to trained resident coaches and untrained resident coaches. Data was collected through onsite naturalistic observation of students' adaptability and proactivity in clinical settings using a checklist with a 4-point Likert scale (1=poor to 4=excellent). Wilcoxon rank-sum test was used to compare the differences between these two groups. RESULTS: A total of 280 data points were collected through onsite observations conducted by investigators. All (n=14) students' adaptability and proactivity performance significantly improved from an average of 3.04 to 3.45 (p=0.014) over 6-week clerkship. Overall, students with trained resident coaches adapted significantly faster and were more proactive in the obstetrics and gynecology clinical setting than the students with untrained coaches (3.31 vs. 3.24, p=0.019). CONCLUSIONS: Findings from our pilot study supported our hypothesis that enriching workplace emotional intelligence knowledge through resident coaches was able to help medical students adapt into obstetrics and gynecology clinical settings faster and become more proactive in learning. Clerkship programs can incorporate the concept of a resident coach in their curriculum to help bridge medical students into clinical settings and to help them engage in self-directed learning throughout the rotation.
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Learning orientation is a student outcome.
“| Coaching outcomes | Student | Learning orientation | [75,109] |”
From Coaching in undergraduate and graduate medical education: a scoping review of success factors, barriers, and outcomes (2026) · cites this paper as [75]
The Discussion reports that students with trained resident coaches became more proactive in learning, and the Results assess learning work tasks during the OB/GYN clerkship. The paper does not identify or measure “learning orientation” as a student outcome; it supports the broader idea of a learning-related outcome, but not that specific label. (LLM, conf=0.78)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredRandom assignment is a factor in coach selection.
“| Coach selection | Randomly assigned | [75,97,144] | |”
From Coaching in undergraduate and graduate medical education: a scoping review of success factors, barriers, and outcomes (2026) · cites this paper as [75]
Comparing intervention vs non-intervention is a coaching measure.
“| Coaching measure | Comparing intervention vs non-intervention | [69,75] |”
From Coaching in undergraduate and graduate medical education: a scoping review of success factors, barriers, and outcomes (2026) · cites this paper as [75]
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- Authors
- Guseh, S. H., Chen, X. P., & Johnson, N. R.
- Affiliations
- Brigham and Women's Hospital (US)
- Corresponding author
- Johnson, Natasha R.
- Venue
- International Journal of Medical Education
- Published
- 2015-12-26
- Volume
- 6
- Pages
- 208-212
- ISSN
- 2042-6372 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4695392
- OpenAlex
- W2220014264
- Cited by
- 35
- References
- 32
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 2 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 1
- FWCI
- 2.73
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- International Journal of Medical Education (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Emotional Intelligence and Performance
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Innovations in Medical Education
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Empathy and Medical Education
- Keywords
- emotional intelligence, medical students, adaptability, proactive behavior, obstetrics and gynecology clerkship, workplace emotional intelligence, self-directed learning
- MeSH terms
- Adaptation, Psychological, Clinical Clerkship, Female, Gynecology, Humans, Male, Obstetrics, Pilot Projects, Students, Medical, Emotional Intelligence
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