Objectives: To determine the change in empathy levels of medical students during their progress in professional years internship, and to examine change in empathy after targeted empathy enhancing activities during the course of medical school.
Study design: Longitudinal Study.
Place and duration of study: Shifa College of Medicine/ Shifa Tameer-e-Millat University, Islamabad, from January 2015 to December 2019.
Methodology: Student version of Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy was administered sequentially from 2015 to 2019 which evaluated the change in empathy of medical students in a class of 2019. Targeted empathy-enhancing activities included patient-centered module in year-three and stress management workshops in the final year of medical school.
Results: Empathy scores rose from the first year of study (4.27 ±0.38) to the third year (4.52 ±0.70). It fell over the next two years of study (4.25 ±0.62 & 4.21 ±0.40) before rising again during the internship (4.39 ±0.43) with focused empathy-enhancing activities.
Conclusion: Patient-centered module which focused on activities that help develop empathy may have been a factor in the increase of empathy scores in the third year and internship. Placing recurring formal activities throughout all clinical years may help in enhancing empathy in medical students.
Key words: Medical student empathy, Empathy enhancing targeted activities, JSPE.