Empathy In Caribbean Medical Students Assessed Using The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire
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Date
2020-02
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
IMed Research Publications
Abstract
Introduction: Empathy is the emotional process to understand a patient’s state of being and current emotion.Empathy, through humanization of medical students, plays an important role while learning and practicing theart of medicine. Our study aims to quantify empathy as an indicator of humanization, in medical studentsthroughout their education.Subjects and Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire survey was performed on basic medical and clinicalscience students at Avalon University School of Medicine, Curacao. Standard Toronto Empathy Questionnaire[TEQ] was utilized to quantify the empathy.Results: Average TEQ scores of the basic students in MD1 - MD4 were 51.55 ± 4.16, 49.42±3.58, 46.72±4.60,48.86±6.17 respectively. Overall TEQ scores were slightly higher in basic science students in comparison to theclinical students (48.82 ± 5.12 vs 48.74 ± 4.01, P=0.46).Conclusions: Empathy scores were higher in basic science medical students in comparison to the clinicalstudents. Lack of progression of empathy amongst medical students needs to be addressed. We recommendmedical schools to adapt and instill the virtue of empathy in the course curriculum
Description
Keywords
Empathy, Medical students, Medical Education, Curriculum, Cross Sectional Study
Citation
Acharya ogesh, Isart Fernando, Shah Sanket, Patak Pooja, Kour Ahmed, Sayed Abida, Arja Sateesh Babu. Empathy In Caribbean Medical Students Assessed Using The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire. International Journal of Integrative Medical Sciences. 2020 Feb; 7(2): 876-882