Empathy in Medical Education: A Case for Social Construction

In this brief review, we build upon suggestions in Pedersen's [1] excellent critical review of empathy research in medical education and make the case for an increase in social constructivist scholarship related to emotions and empathy within medical education contexts. In the process, we define social construction, as well as provide several key opportunities in which these types of theories could provide insights for medical educators

A Feel for the Clinic: Affect, Embodiment, and Simulation in the Pelvic Exam

Gynecological teaching associates (GTAs) are female-bodied individuals who teach medical students how to perform sensitive and competent gynecological examinations using the instructor's own body. GTA programs emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, and have since become ubiquitous to medical education (Beckmann, et al, 1988). During a teaching session, a GTA walks a group of two to four medical students through a complete pelvic exam, emphasizing correct technique and language, as well as other patient interaction skills. Despite a growing number of computer-based simulation models, which align with the increasing rationalization and science-oriented nature of medical education (Prentice, 2012), GTA programs remain a valued part of medical education. My dissertation considers two questions: 1) what were the processes by which GTA programs came to be a part of medical education, and 2) why are GTA programs sustained in medical education? I focused on the historical development and current use of GTA programs at three major medical schools in Chicago. I combined qualitative interview and archival data from three groups of stakeholders: GTAs, medical students, and medical faculty. Using literatures on embodiment, biomedicine, and science studies, I argue that the GTA program is a type of simulation program that inculcates the medical habitus in medical students. I demonstrate first how crisis in the field of medicine created opportunities for reformers of medical education and feminists in the Women's Health Movement to collaborate. I show how the GTA session allows medical students to rehearse the ethical and emotional dispositions required of physicians. I then explore the development of techniques of the body for physical exam through the GTA session. I conclude by working toward a notion of affective practice, or the repetitive rehearsal of styles of experiencing, expressing, and managing ways of feeling until these become seemingly natural to the body

Empathy in Medical Education: A Case for Social Construction

In this brief review, we build upon suggestions in Pedersen's [1] excellent critical review of empathy research in medical education and make the case for an increase in social constructivist scholarship related to emotions and empathy within medical education contexts. In the process, we define social construction, as well as provide several key opportunities in which these types of theories could provide insights for medical educator

Detached Concern?: Emotional Socialization in Twenty-First Century Medical Education

Early works in medical sociology have been pivotal in the development of scholarly knowledge about emotions, emotional socialization, and empathy within medical training, medical education, and medical contexts. Yet despite major shifts in both medical education and in medicine writ-large, medical sociologists' focus on emotions has largely disappeared. In this paper, we argue that due to recent radical transformations in the medical arena, emotional socialization within medical education should be of renewed interest for sociologists. Developments in medical education such as increased diversity among enrollees, the rise of patient health movements, and curricular transformation have made this context a particularly interesting case for sociologists working on a variety of questions related to structural, organizational, and cultural change. We offer three areas of debate within studies in medical education that sociologists may be interested in studying: 1) gendered and racialized differences in the performance of clinical skills related to emotion, 2) differences in self-reported empathy among subspecialties, and 3) loss of empathy during the third year or clinical year of medical school