Last week I brought up the idea that medical students lose their empathy during medical school because they’re constantly overstimulated by emotions.
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This week I’d like to propose a few
solutions to promoting empathy
in medical school.
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1. Offer medical students free counseling or therapy sessions on a regular basis. I know that this sounds really extreme or touchy-feely, but during the first weeks of school we had several sessions regarding everyone’s feelings about working with cadavers. That is the only time in the first six months of medical school that the curriculum has acknowledged that medical students have feelings that they may need to process
2. Promote a culture of reflection….
3. Acknowledge that losing a little bit of empathy is not necessarily a bad thing. ….
Kaplan Elite MCAT Instructor
