MINNEAPOLIS, March 18, 2008—According to a study of medical students in the March issue of Academic Medicine, empathy for patients starts to decline in the first year of medical school.

The study tracked 419 medical students at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, from 1997 to 2004. Researchers measured vicarious empathy, "a person's vicarious emotional response to perceived emotional experiences of others."

Students reported their agreement or disagreement on a nine-point scale in response to statements such as "I cannot feel much sorrow for those who are responsible for their own misery." 

The decline in the first year may have been due to the stress and anxiety of being a med student. Scores decreased again after the third year in school, when students finished their first year of clinical rotations.

The problem is that nearly everyone agrees that physicians must be empathic to do their jobs. Empathy means better communication, greater trust, greater compliance and fewer lawsuits.

The erosion of compassion that begins in medical school may initiate a career-long battle between the need to be efficient and the need to communicate well.

Women, the study showed, lose less empathy than men.

American Medical News article