Improving Empathy and Relational Skills

• Consultation and Relational Empathy Measure (CARE) measure [ Time Frame: Up to 5 weeks (this is an average) ] [ Designated as safety issue: Yes ]
  At baseline: (1) Residents will complete the CARE measure (2) 10 patients in each resident's clinic will rate their encounter using the CARE Measure; (3) Residents will receive the Empathy and Relational Training Modules or residency training as usual. At the six-week endpoint: (4) residents will complete the CARE measure and (5) patients will complete the CARE measure after the clinic visit.
  
  

• Jefferson Empathy Scale Mehrabian Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale (BEES) (30 items) 2.Jefferson Empathy Scale (20 items 3. Neuroscience of Emotions Assessment 4. Ekman Facial Expression Decoding Assessment [ Time Frame: Prospective ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
  The Mehrabian BEES Measures baseline empathy. The Jefferson Scale measures physician attitudes about the importance of empathy in clinical medical care. The Neuroscience of Emotions Test measures knowledge of basic science of emotions. The Ekman test measures ability to decode subtle facial expressions.
  
  

The study design is a randomized controlled trial assigning resident physicians (N=100) to either: (a) empathy and relational skills training; or (b) control group receiving standard residency training as usual. Over the course of six weeks, each resident physician in the experimental group will receive three 60-minute training sessions focused on empathy and relational skills (the residents assigned to the control condition will receive standard residency training as usual). The emerging neuroscience of emotions and empathy has provided the neurobiological and physiological bases for our Empathy Training Modules to enhance patient-doctor communication. These innovative modules provide the basic science and video modeling for empathy training. Based on cutting edge mirror neuron research, our training modules offer a novel approach to empathy and relational skills training that teaches physicians about the neurobiology and physiology of emotions in difficult or stressful patient interactions. We have developed professionally produced high definition training modules that portray difficult patient-physician interactions. Importantly, these videos also include physiological displays of emotion for both members of the dyad so that one can easily observe the degree to which patient and physician are physiologically concordant or discordant with one another. The empathy training is conducted at a deeper level of physiological awareness and regulation that promises to be more effective than traditional didactic teaching by integrating the technology of psychophysiology. The goal of raising awareness of physiologic indices during a patient-doctor interaction is to present an objective measure of emotional response to both explicit and implicit stimuli, which promises to be a powerful teaching tool to enhance empathic physician behaviors.