I thought it was a little interesting that different questionnaires and measures gave different results.
Empathy Actually Increases in Med School Students
Study challenges conventional belief about empathy declining
http://www.medpagetoday.com/PrimaryCare/GeneralPrimaryCare/67956
- by Jennifer Thew RN, HealthLeaders Media
- September 17, 2017
When the researchers evaluated the respondents' answers to the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy, a common self-assessment questionnaire thought to primarily evaluate the cognitive aspects of empathy, they did see a decline in scores of the course of training.
But when they administered the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy, an assessment to distinguish the two facets of empathy, students' scores on the questionnaire improved over time and both affective empathy and cognitive empathy increased during medical training. They also showed greater sensitivity to facial expressions of pain, and progress in their ability to quickly and accurately recognize others' emotional states.
"We found that changes in empathy during medical training are not necessarily negative -- the narrative appears to be much more complicated than we initially thought and illustrates how problematic it is to rely on a single, subjective measure to evaluate a complex psychological construct," the authors said.