Team Emotional Intelligence, Team Interactions, and Gender in Medical Students During a Psychiatry Clerkship.

OBJECTIVE: This study examined the relationship between team emotional intelligence, quality of team interactions, and gender. METHODS: Psychiatry clerkship students participating in Team-Based Learning (TBL, n = 484) or no TBL (control, n = 265) completed the Workgroup Emotional Intelligence Profile (WEIP-S) and the Team Performance Scale (TPS). RESULTS: Significant correlations (p < 0.01) existed between quality of team interactions (i.e., TPS) and team emotional intelligence (i.e., WEIP-S) subscales, but not gender. Control and TBL groups experienced significant increases in WEIP-S subscales pre to post (p < 0.01, η (2) = .08), with the TBL group experiencing significantly higher gains in three of four subscales. Control group scored higher on TPS. CONCLUSIONS: A significant relationship exists between team emotional intelligence and quality of team interactions. Gender was unrelated to TPS or WEIP-S subscales. TBL group experienced higher gains in WEIP-S subscales while the control group experienced slightly higher TPS scores. Results suggest implications for medical educators who use TBL.

Teaching medical students to recognize demoralization

Background and Objectives: Concepts such as demoralization fit well intoProblem or Case-based learning methods that encourage students to organize knowledge based on clinical problems, rather than according to the disciplines of basic science. Methods: At two US schools, psychiatry clerkship students learn about demoralization and psychotherapy through structured, case based exercises that teach them to elicit and respond to patients’ life stories in ways that emphasize hope and empowerment. Results: Students’ reactions to these exercises, though mixed, suggest that they may enhance students’ understanding of the universal elements of distress (demoralization) thatcut across many disabling conditions and of the role that caregivers may play in compounding or relieving this distress. Conclusions: Learning to recognize and respond to demoralization is an advanced communication skill that can be introduced during a psychiatry clerkship (AU)

Qualitative analysis of medical student impressions of a narrative exercise in the third-year psychiatry clerkship.

PURPOSE: Clinical clerkship directors and faculty undertake the challenge of teaching patient-centered communication to students who face the enormous doctor-centered task of learning diagnostic medicine. The authors examined students' written reactions to the narrative exercise, which, drawing from narrative medicine and narrative therapy, challenges students to be more patient-centered by writing a patient's life story and sharing it with that patient. METHOD: During one-half of an academic year (2008-2009), the authors used qualitative methods to explore the range of medical student experiences with the narrative exercise in the psychiatry clerkship. RESULTS: During the study period, 46 medical students completed the exercise, and 44 (96%) submitted 367 comments for the research team to analyze. Four broad categories emerged: (1) communication, (2) insight, (3) hope, and (4) mixed or negative reactions. The most common theme was improved communication, which comprised the subcategories of enhanced active listening, opening up, and relationship building. Improved insights included student insights into their patients, as well as the facilitation of patient insights into themselves, especially regarding their own strengths and relationships. The exercise was well received by students: Only five comments were categorized as negative, and all of these related to difficulties selecting patients. CONCLUSIONS: Students reported many examples of improved patient-centered communication facilitated by the exercise. The narrative exercise may also promote a greater understanding of patients as complete human beings rather than diagnostic entities. The approach may be useful in educational settings beyond the psychiatry clerkship.