Using literature to help physician-learners understand and manage "difficult" patients

Practice Makes Perfect: Training Residents in Difficult Encounters

INTRODUCTION

A significant number of patient encounters are perceived to be difficult. Residents receive little training in managing difficult clinical encounters, and lectures or traditional simulated patient encounters may not provide the opportunity to practice learned skills. Deliberate practice has been shown to be effective in training clinical skills. We used simulation with deliberate practice and feedback to train residents in difficult patient encounters.

METHODS

Twelve second-year residents in the University of Missouri Family and Community Medicine residency program participated in simulated patient encounters with difficult patients. The patients represented challenging personalities identified in a resident focus group. Resident performance was scored by the standardized patient, resident observers, and faculty instructor. Following debriefing with feedback, the residents repeated the clinical encounter incorporating the feedback. The sessions were scored again by the same individuals.

RESULTS

All scores improved from the first to second clinical encounter, except those that were at 100% for both encounters. The most improvement seen was in standardized patient scores. The smallest improvement was in provider self-scores.

CONCLUSION

Resident performance improved according to all observers and their own self-assessments. These results are consistent with other studies that have demonstrated the effectiveness of deliberate practice in improving skills in other areas of medical education. Simulation-based learning with deliberate practice has the potential to improve resident management of difficult patient encounters.

Characterizing changes in student empathy throughout medical school

BACKGROUND

 Empathy is important in the physician-patient relationship. Prior studies suggest that medical student empathy declines with clinical training.

AIMS

 We examined the trend of empathy longitudinally; determined differences in empathy according to gender and medical specialty preferences; and determined empathy and career preference differences among students admitted through different medical school admission pathways.

METHOD

 The data for this study were collected using a longitudinal cohort design and included 2652 observations nested within 1162 individuals. Participants were medical students at a university-based medical school surveyed yearly from 2007 through 2010. Empathy was measured by the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy-Student Version (JSPE-S), a validated, 20-item self-administered questionnaire. Predictors of JSPE-S scores included gender, age, anticipated financial debt upon graduation and future career interest.

RESULTS

 Empathy scores of students in preclinical years were higher than in clinical years. Gender was a significant predictor of empathy, with women having higher empathy scores than men. Students preferring technology-oriented specialties had lower empathy scores. When career preference was controlled, higher levels of debt were significantly associated with greater empathy. Students with high baseline empathy decreased less than students with low baseline empathy during medical school. Students in traditional four-year medical school programs had higher baseline empathy than those in early pathway programs.

CONCLUSIONS

 Self-reported empathy for patients, a possibly critical factor in high-quality patient-centered care, wanes as students advance in clinical training, particularly among those entering technology-oriented specialties. In the era of new health care policy and primary care shortages, our research may have implications for the medical education system and admission policy.

A cross-sectional measurement of medical student empathy

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.

Empathy and patient-physician conflicts

Physicians associate empathy with benevolent emotions and with developing a shared understanding with patients. While there have been many articles on managing "difficult" patients, little attention has been paid to the challenges physicians face during conflicts with patients, especially when both parties are angry and yet empathy is still needed. This topic is especially important in light of recent studies showing that practicing medicine increasingly requires physicians to manage their own feelings of anger and frustration. This article seeks to describe how physicians can learn to empathize with patients even when they are both subject to emotions that lead to interpersonal distancing. Empathy is defined as engaged curiosity about another's particular emotional perspective. Five specific ways for physicians to foster empathy during conflict are described: recognizing one's own emotions, attending to negative emotions over time, attuning to patients' verbal and nonverbal emotional messages, and becoming receptive to negative feedback. Importantly, physicians who learn to empathize with patients during emotionally charged interactions can reduce anger and frustration and also increase their therapeutic impact.

Much variety and little evidence: a description of guidelines for doctor-patient communication

AIM

To explore the quality of the content of communication skills training programmes, we analysed and assessed guidelines for doctor-patient communication used in communication programmes for general practitioner (GP) trainees.

METHOD

Guidelines for doctor-patient communication were extracted from educational materials supplied by the 8 Dutch university centres for vocational training in general practice. Four themes guided the analysis of the guidelines: content, type of contact, format and structure and status. The quality of the guidelines was assessed with the Appraisal of Guidelines Research and Evaluation (AGREE) instrument, a validated measurement instrument for guideline quality.

RESULTS

We identified 18 guidelines. Guideline content covered 64-100% of the GP qualification requirements. General consultations and specific situations were the subject of 9 guidelines each. Format and structure differed between guidelines. Guideline use seemed not to be obligatory. AGREE scores were low.

CONCLUSIONS

Guidelines for doctor-patient communication are difficult to identify in materials of GP training courses. Guideline quality is low; guidelines are little evidence-based and little attention has been paid to applicability and involvement of users. GP qualification requirements are only partly covered. Guidelines differed substantially without clarity about the reasons behind different choices. Guideline status was low.

RECOMMENDATIONS

When studying the factors that influence training effect, the quality of training content should be considered as well as teaching methods. Communication skills training programmes should be based on evidence-based guidelines that have been developed according to similar standards as for medical technical guidelines.

Teaching culturally appropriate care: a review of educational models and methods

The disparities in health care and health outcomes between the majority population and cultural and racial minorities in the United States are a problem that likely is influenced by the lack of culturally competent care. Emergency medicine and other primary-care specialties remain on the front lines of this struggle because of the nature of their open-door practice. To provide culturally appropriate care, health care providers must recognize the factors impeding cultural awareness, seek to understand the biases and traditions in medical education potentially fueling this phenomenon, and create a health care community that is open to individuals' otherness, thus leading to better communication of ideas and information between patients and their health care providers. This article highlights the rationale for and current problems in teaching cultural competency and examines several different models implemented to teach and promote cultural competency along the continuum of emergency medicine learners. However, the literature addressing the true efficacy of such programs in leading to long-lasting change and improvement in minority patients' clinical outcomes remains insufficient.

Portrayal of negative qualities in a doctor as a potential teaching tool in medical ethics and humanism: Journey to the End of Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Fictional stories about physicians and patients are increasingly used as a powerful teaching resource for medical students. Very often, but not exclusively, stories of physicians as positive role models are selected to teach students virtues and ethical values. Negative role models are rarely used and if so, physicians are rather described as medical quacks in such fiction then exhibiting primarily a corrupted character. I suggest that a fictional story that presents exclusively a negative role model of a physician could also be a valuable, admittedly difficult, teaching resource to demonstrate the consequences of absolute loss of ethical standards and virtues in physicians. A not widely known example of this genre is Louis-Ferdinand Céline's (1894-1961) novel Voyage au bout de la nuit (Journey to the End of the Night), published in 1932. Having a strong autobiographical background, the novel described the adventures of the medicine student, Ferdinand Bardamu, during the first world war, in the African colonies as a trader, in the United States of America as factory worker, and later after finishing his education, as a doctor for the poor. Unfortunately, Dr Bardamu develops an unprofessional, even criminal behaviour, and may serve as a negative role model for the virtues of physicians. This article will familiarise the reader with the novel and its physician author.

Educating for professionalism: trainees' emotional experiences on IM and pediatrics inpatient wards

PURPOSE

To assess day-to-day emotions and the experiences that trigger these emotions for medical trainees in hospital settings. The overarching goal was to illuminate training experiences that affect professional behaviors of physicians.

METHOD

This qualitative study, conducted April-June 2000, used semistructured, open-ended interviews, observations by a non-participant, and a self-report task at two inpatient services (internal medicine and pediatrics) at different hospitals within a single academic institution in the northwestern United States. Twelve team members, including medical students, interns, residents, and attendings, were invited to participate. Ten completed all aspects of the study. Interviews were conducted before and after a one-week period of non-participant observations and self-report tasks. The authors grouped emotional experiences into "positive" or "difficult" emotions. Data were analyzed for coherent themes using grounded theory and content analysis.

RESULTS

Positive emotions included gratitude, happiness, compassion, pride, and relief, and were triggered by connections with patients and colleagues, receiving recognition for one's labors, learning, being a part of modern medicine, and receiving emotional support from others. Difficult emotions included anxiety, guilt, sadness, anger, and shame and were triggered by uncertainty, powerlessness, responsibility, liability, lack of respect, and a difference in values. Tragedy and patients' suffering was the only trigger to elicit both positive (compassion) and difficult (sadness) emotions.

CONCLUSION

This study identified common and important emotions experienced by medical trainees and the common triggers for these emotions. Understanding trainees' experiences of uncertainty, powerlessness, differing values, and lack of respect can guide education program designs and reforms to create an environment that fosters professional growth.

The Art of Medicine through the Humanities: an overview of a one-month humanities elective for fourth year students

BACKGROUND

The purpose of incorporating humanities teaching into medical education is to encourage students to develop into more sensitive and caring doctors who communicate well with their patients and colleagues.

CONTENT

A unique 4th year student elective at the Medical College of Wisconsin incorporates reflective and writing activities. Small group sessions are facilitated by faculty with specific interest and expertise in the humanities.

EVALUATION

Students keep a journal in which they record their reflections on personal issues, career planning and reactions to classroom discussions. Each student writes a poem and an essay or short story. The course is well received and oversubscribed.

CONCLUSIONS

Students increase their understanding of the humanities through readings, small group discussions, journal keeping and formal writing. By incorporating humanism into their professional lives, medical students can learn to care for their patients in a more humane and thoughtful manner.