Measuring "humanism" in medical residents

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Psychology
• Internal Medicine

Background:

• Physician certification requires evaluation of humanistic attributes.
• Current performance measures may not adequately assess these qualities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine if traditional resident performance measures correlate with humanistic attributes.
• To identify assessment tools that can detect nonhumanistic dimensions.

Main Methods:

• 38 medical residents completed attitudinal assessments (Totalitarian-Authoritarian-Dogmatism and Rokeach tests).
• Resident performance was measured using five primary sources.
• Attitudinal and performance measures were correlated.

Main Results:

• Professional maturity and compassion showed negative correlations with "antipathy toward patients" (r = -.43 and r = -.35, respectively).
• The TAD Opinionnaire and a special performance evaluation identified "nonhumanistic dimensions" missed by routine faculty assessments.
• The American Board of Internal Medicine's new scale is unlikely to measure humanistic attributes effectively.

Conclusions:

• Routine faculty assessments and the ABIM's new scale may fail to evaluate crucial humanistic attributes in residents.
• Specific attitudinal and performance evaluations are more effective in identifying "nonhumanistic dimensions."
• Further research is needed to develop reliable methods for assessing physician humanism.