Emotional Intelligence and Burnout Related to Resident-Assessed Faculty Teaching Scores

Emotional intelligence (EI) is associated with job success in multiple fields, in part, because EI may mitigate stress and burnout. Research suggests these relationships may include teaching. Our purpose is to further explore the relationships between EI, burnout, and teaching for faculty surgeons.

With IRB approval, surgical faculty were offered the opportunity to complete personal demographics, the Maslach Burnout Inventory, the SETQ-SMART assessment of teaching ability, and the SEF:MED self-assessment of emotional intelligence. Surgical residents rated faculty teaching ability using the SETQ-SMART SETTING: A medium-sized academic medical center in the Southeast approved to graduate 6 residents per year.

ACGME surgical faculty and general surgical residents PGY1 to PGY5 including preliminary residents, were given the opportunity to participate.

Faculty self-assessed teaching scores were significantly different from resident scores for nine (60%) faculty; three (33%) overrated their and 6 (67%) under rated their overall teaching ability, relative to resident ratings. The 3 SEF:MED scales correlated low-moderate to strongly with the SETQ-OTS: IS (r = 0.41, p = 0.13), EM (r = 0.67, p < 0.01), and EA (r = 0.43, p = 0.11). Overall, 8(53%) faculty scored moderate to high on at least 1 of the 3 MBI subscales. Overall self-rated faculty teaching scores correlated negatively with higher EE and DP and positively with PA (r = -0.08, -0.21, and 0.52, p = 0.047; respectively). EI negatively correlated with MBI-EE and DP and positively with PA (r = -0.31, -0.18, 0.45, respectively), though due to the small sample none reach statistical significance with alpha set to 0.05.

In this pilot study, EI is positively correlated to surgical faculty members' teaching ability. Burnout was less strongly correlated with resident-assessed faculty teaching scores, but with similar trends. Finally, EI was correlated with MBI EE, DP, and PA as expected given the literature in other fields. Expanded study is warranted.