Amidst the crisis, we are happy to see that our students, along with faculty members, published an article titled “Empathy in Caribbean Medical Students assessed using the Toronto empathy questionnaire“ in the International Journal of Integrative Medicine. Five students, Mr. Fernando Isart, Mr. Sanket Shah, Ms. Pooja Patak, Mr. Ahmed Kour, and Ms. Abida Sayed, were involved in this publication. Here is the link
Abstract:
Introduction
Empathy is the emotional process to understand a patient’s state of being and the current emotion. Empathy, through the humanization of medical students, plays a vital role while learning and practicing the art of medicine. Our study aims to quantify empathy as an indicator of humanization in medical students throughout their education.
Subjects and Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire survey was performed on basic medical and clinical science students at Avalon University School of Medicine, Curacao. Standard Toronto Empathy Questionnaire [TEQ] was utilized to quantify empathy.
Results: Average TEQ scores of the basic students in MD1 – MD4 was 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 the clinical 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 clinical students. Lack of progression of empathy amongst medical students needs to be addressed. We recommend medical schools to adapt and instill the virtue of empathy in the course curriculum.
