Competence is Essential but not Sufficient.

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Psychology
• Physician Well-being

Background:

• Physician loneliness is increasing, affecting physician well-being and patient care.
• Early intervention in medical school is proposed to address professional loneliness.
• The impact of psychological needs on medical student performance requires investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between medical students' psychological needs and their performance.
• To identify which psychological needs are significant predictors of clinical decision-making skills.

Main Methods:

• Surveys assessed medical students' needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness.
• Student survey responses were correlated with their clinical decision-making scores.
• Regression analysis was used to determine the predictive power of each need.

Main Results:

• Relatedness emerged as the largest and only significant predictor of student performance.
• Autonomy and competence needs did not significantly predict performance in this study.
• A strong positive association was found between relatedness and clinical decision-making scores.

Conclusions:

• Fostering relatedness in medical training is crucial for enhancing student performance.
• Interventions aimed at increasing feelings of connection may improve clinical skills.
• Future research should explore strategies to support relatedness in digital medical education environments.