Impact of mistreatment on the learning of novice medical students: An experimental study

Mistreatment toward peers, residents, and patients has been shown to trigger negative emotions among medical trainees. However, the impact of such experiences on trainees' learning needs to be further explored. This study reports on the impact of a situation of mistreatment experienced by a medical resident on novice medical students' learning of a scientific text.

Videos portraying a medical resident receiving feedback about his performance in caring for a patient who died were used. Participants were randomly assigned to watch either a video where the feedback is accusatory and disrespectful (emotionally negative group-ENG) or understanding and respectful (neutral group-NG). Subsequently, all participants studied a scientific text. Study time and cognitive engagement with the text were recorded. Finally, they did a recall test about the text.

Data from 68 third-year medical students were analysed. Test scores were lower for the students in the ENG compared with the NG [10.82 (5.37) and 14.44 (7.02), respectively, p = 0.020, d = 0.58]. No differences in cognitive engagement [3.98 (0.60) and 4.10 (0.73) for ENG and NG, respectively, p = 0.45] or time spent studying the scientific text [5:05 (1:36) and 4:56 (1:37) for ENG and NG, respectively, p = 0.71] were observed.

A simulated situation of mistreatment experienced by a resident negatively impacted the learning of a scientific text by novice medical students. These results extend the evidence on the negative impact of mistreatment on learning. It supports the relevance of mitigating mistreatment and adjusting training activities in situations of emotional distress.