The Affective and Cognitive Empathy of Faculty Teaching at An Osteopathic Medical School

Abstract

Background Having empathy is an essential trait for health care professionals as they establish a bond of trust with patients.  Patients feel physicians are more caring if they sense their physician is empathetic.  Although there are studies examining affective and cognitive empathy among allopathic and osteopathic medical students, there has not been a study which has examined the affective and cognitive empathy of a medical school faculty.

Methods The faculty at the Campbell University Jerry M. Wallace School of Osteopathic Medicine (CUSOM) were asked to voluntarily participate in an empathy study by filling out the Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale (BEES; DOs, MDs and PhDs) and the Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSE; DOs and MDs) which measure affective and cognitive empathy, respectively.  Specialty practice and the sex of the MDs and DOs was collected.  Specialty practice was divided into Core and Non-Core groups.  Core specialties are “people-oriented” and include Family and Internal Medicine, Ob/Gyn, Pediatrics and Psychiatry.  Non-Core specialties are “technical- or procedure-oriented”, e.g., Radiology, Surgery, Anesthesiology.  The data were compared to the BEES and JSE scores of graduating CUSOM students (2017-2019), as well as the JSE scores of graduating DO students (2018) from across the US.

Results When combining men and women scores, there are no significant differences in the affective or cognitive empathy scores between the DOs, MDs and PhDs.  DO or MD physicians that practice in Core specialties have significantly larger JSE scores than physicians practicing in the Non-Core specialties.  There were no significant differences in DO or MD BEES scores for men or women who practice in Core specialties.  Female and male DO Core BEES scores were significantly larger than the male and female MD Non-Core BEES scores.  Except for men who practice in Non-Core specialties, CUSOM DOs and MDs had larger JSE and BEES scores than the CUSOM graduates or DO students from across the US.  PhDs had larger BEES scores than the DOs, followed by the MDs.

Conclusions  Other than physicians practicing in Non-Core specialties, CUSOM physicians have larger cognitive empathy scores than their students.  Therefore, they may be able to teach students empathic communication skills.  The larger affective empathy scores for PhDs vs. the CUSOM physicians, may be advantageous when the PhD faculty deal with various first- and second-year student issues.