Reflections in Medical Education: Empathy, Emotions, and Possible Pedagogical Resources for the Emotional Education of Medical Students

Abstract

Outcomes, guidelines, and clinical trials are at the forefront of the current medical training. However, we observe well-trained technological physicians with a reduced humanistic perspective which leads to attitudes that lack ethics and professionalism. There is a growing concern about the human dimension of the future physician and how it can be taught or reinforced in the educational environment allowing to integrate technical science with the humanism. Empathy could bridge the gap between patient-centered medicine and evidence-based medicine. Role modeling and caring carefully for the emotional dimension of medical students are possible resources for preventing the erosion of empathy. Humanities and arts help in building a humanistic perspective of doctoring because they enable doctors to understand patients in their whole context. The inclusion of humanities in the curriculum occasions deep rethinking of what it means to be sick and what it means to take care of the sick.