[An experiential learning course on teaching humanistic skills to medical students--effect on empathy and regard for...

The "humanization" of medical practice is regarded as one of the topics of present day medicine. A number of models and educational programs for teaching humanistically oriented medicine has appeared, but few studies have been done to illustrate the effects of such programs. In the present paper, the authors report a study that they conducted in which the effects of participating in a seminar on counseling skills were demonstrated. The subjects were 11 first and second year medical students who took part in an elective course in medical humanities, in which counseling skills, active listening and experimental focusing were taught. The class met for 10 sessions every other week, in which students were exposed to these techniques. On weeks when the class did not meet, students practiced these techniques in pairs among themselves. At each of these sessions, students filled out a relationship scale and recorded the session into a cassette tape. Furthermore, students filled out personality tests at the first and last class. A comparison of the results of the relationship scale between the first and last session showed a significant increase in the students' ability for empathy (P less than 0.02) and for unconditional positive regard (P less than 0.02). Not enough personality tests were handed in at the last class to provide a useful comparison. Tapes of the sessions are currently being investigated in another study using a different measurement. The authors discuss the need for such experimental courses for medical students to overcome the Cartesian view of seeing others as "objects" and for developing humanistic ways of relating to other persons.