Emotional Intelligence and the ACGME Competencies

Residency programs desire assessment tools for teaching and measuring resident attainment of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education competencies, including interpersonal and communication skills.

We sought to evaluate the use of emotional intelligence (EI) assessment and training tools in assessing and enhancing interpersonal and communication skills.

We used a quasi-experimental design, with an intervention and control group composed of 1 class each of family medicine residents. The intervention was EI coaching. The assessment used the Emotional and Social Competence Inventory, a 360-degree EI survey consisting of self and other (colleague) ratings for 12 EI competencies.

There were 21 participants in each of the 3 assessments (test, posttest, and control). Our EI coaching intervention had very limited participation due to a lack of protected time for EI coaching and residents' competing obligations. Return rates for self surveys were 86% to 91% and 66% to 68% for others. On all 3 trials, ratings by others were significantly higher than self ratings for every competence (range, P < .001-.045). None of the self ratings by the intervention group increased significantly for any of the competencies. None of the intervention group self ratings increased significantly on posttesting, whereas ratings by others increased significantly for coach/mentor (P < .001). The teamwork rating decreased significantly on both self and other ratings (P < .001). Achievement orientation was the highest intervention group posttest rating, and teamwork was the lowest.

EI is a necessary skill in today's health care environment, and our study found that a tool from another sector was useful in assessing resident EI skills. Because our EI coaching intervention was unsuccessful, the effects of coaching on interpersonal and communication skills could not be assessed.