Medical Students’ Exposure to the Humanities Correlates with Positive Personal Qualities and Reduced Burnout: A Multi-Institutional U.S. Survey

Background Literature, music, theater, and visual arts play an uncertain and limited role in medical education. One of the arguments often advanced in favor of teaching the humanities refers to their capacity to foster traits that not only improve practice, but might also reduce physician burnout—an...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of general internal medicine : JGIM 2018-05, Vol.33 (5), p.628-634
Main Authors: Mangione, Salvatore, Chakraborti, Chayan, Staltari, Giuseppe, Harrison, Rebecca, Tunkel, Allan R., Liou, Kevin T., Cerceo, Elizabeth, Voeller, Megan, Bedwell, Wendy L., Fletcher, Keaton, Kahn, Marc J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Ambiguity
Arts
Balances (scales)
Berries
Burnout
Burnout, Psychological - prevention & control
Cognitive ability
Cohort Studies
Education, Medical - organization & administration
Emotions
Exhaustion
Exposure
Fatigue
Female
Fruits
Humanities
Humanities - education
Humanities - psychology
Humanities - statistics & numerical data
Humans
Internal Medicine
Internet
Intolerance
Male
Medical research
Medical students
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Original Research
Regression analysis
Schools
Skills
Statistical analysis
Students
Students, Medical - psychology
Students, Medical - statistics & numerical data
Surveys and Questionnaires
Technical education
Young Adult
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Background Literature, music, theater, and visual arts play an uncertain and limited role in medical education. One of the arguments often advanced in favor of teaching the humanities refers to their capacity to foster traits that not only improve practice, but might also reduce physician burnout—an increasing scourge in today’s medicine. Yet, research remains limited. Objective To test the hypothesis that medical students with higher exposure to the humanities would report higher levels of positive physician qualities (e.g., wisdom, empathy, self-efficacy, emotional appraisal, spatial skills), while reporting lower levels of negative qualities that are detrimental to physician well-being (e.g., intolerance of ambiguity, physical fatigue, emotional exhaustion, and cognitive weariness). Design An online survey. Participants All students enrolled at five U.S. medical schools during the 2014–2015 academic year were invited by email to take part in our online survey. Main Measures Students reported their exposure to the humanities (e.g., music, literature, theater, visual arts) and completed rating scales measuring selected personal qualities. Key Results In all, 739/3107 medical students completed the survey (23.8%). Regression analyses revealed that exposure to the humanities was significantly correlated with positive personal qualities, including empathy ( p  
ISSN:0884-8734
1525-1497
DOI:10.1007/s11606-017-4275-8