Physician empathy: definition, components, measurement, and relationship to gender and specialty

OBJECTIVE: There is a dearth of empirical research on physician empathy despite its mediating role in patient-physician relationships and clinical outcomes. This study was designed to investigate the components of physician empathy, its measurement properties, and group differences in empathy scores. METHOD: A revised version of the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (with 20 Likert-type items) was mailed to 1,007 physicians affiliated with the Jefferson Health System in the greater Philadelphia region; 704 (70%) responded. Construct validity, reliability of the empathy scale, and the differences on mean empathy scores by physicians’ gender and specialty were examined. RESULTS: Three meaningful factors emerged (perspective taking, compassionate care, and standing in the patient’s shoes) to provide support for the construct validity of the empathy scale that was also found to be internally consistent with relatively stable scores over time. Women scored higher than men to a degree that was nearly significant. With control for gender, psychiatrists scored a mean empathy rating that was significantly higher than that of physicians specializing in anesthesiology, orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, radiology, cardiovascular surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, and general surgery. No significant difference was observed on empathy scores among physicians specializing in psychiatry, internal medicine, pediatrics, emergency medicine, and family medicine. CONCLUSIONS: Empathy is a multidimensional concept that varies among physicians and can be measured with a psychometrically sound tool. Implications for specialty selection and career counseling are discussed

Operation and performance of the ATLAS semiconductor tracker in LHC Run 2

The semiconductor tracker (SCT) is one of the tracking systems for charged particles in the ATLAS detector. It consists of 4088 silicon strip sensor modules. During Run 2 (2015–2018) the Large Hadron Collider delivered an integrated luminosity of 156 fb-1 to the ATLAS experiment at a centre-of-mass proton-proton collision energy of 13 TeV. The instantaneous luminosity and pile-up conditions were far in excess of those assumed in the original design of the SCT detector. Due to improvements to the data acquisition system, the SCT operated stably throughout Run 2. It was available for 99.9% of the integrated luminosity and achieved a data-quality efficiency of 99.85%. Detailed studies have been made of the leakage current in SCT modules and the evolution of the full depletion voltage, which are used to study the impact of radiation damage to the modules

The Evolution of Global Health at Jefferson

Joseph S. Gonnella, AB, MD Joseph S. Gonnella is the founder of the Medical College’s Center for Research in Medical Education and Health Care. Dr. Gonnella has been associated with the Medical College since 1967, and Dean from 1984-2000. Dr. Gonnella received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School. His research has focused on the relationships between knowledge, capabilities, and actual clinical performance. He has developed a Disease Staging evaluation system that has been used to assess the quality and costs of health care. Dr. Gonnella has received many awards and honors, including the Commendatore dell’ Ordine della Stella Della Solidarieta Italiana by the President of Italy; Grande Ufficiale by the President of Italy; Dongbaeg Medal by the President of Korea; Presidential Medal from Dartmouth College; Presidential Citation from TJU; Founders Award, American College of Medical Quality; Abraham Flexner Award, Association of American Medical Colleges; Honorary Doctor of Medicine, University of Chieti, Italy; Honorary Doctor of Medicine, SoonChunHyang University, Seoul, Korea; Honorary Doctor of Science, Widener University; Honorary Professorship, Tianjin Medical College, Tianjin, China; Honorary Doctor of Medicine and Ron Harden Visiting Professorship, the International Medical University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh; Honorary Member, National Academy of Medicine, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Honorary Member, National Academy of Medicine, Mexico; Cathedra Professor Carlos Lloyd Braga Award 2008 and Honorary degree in Medicine, University of Minho, Portugal; Honorary Member of the Academy of Science Institute, Bologna, Italy; Honorary Degree in Medicine from the University of Minho, Portugal; Ron Harden Visiting Professorship from the International Medical University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia