An Investigation of Physician Assistant and Medical Student Empathic Skills

Empathic skill levels in allied health professionals are associated with both patient satisfaction and compliance. These skills have been related to clinicians' educational backgrounds. The primary purpose of this study was to compare the empathic skill levels of health care students having different educational preparation but a similar practice orientation. The secondary purpose was to examine these students' self-perceptions of their own empathic skill levels. The subjects were physician assistant and medical students. Reliability was increased by using four different published instruments to obtain multiple measures on both subject self-ratings and on observer ratings of the subjects. Medical students rated themselves significantly lower (p < 0.001) than the observers on one instrument, and physician assistant students rated themselves the same as the observers. The scores on observer-rated instruments were consistently higher for physician assistant students than for medical students, but these differences were not statistically significant.