Abstract

In this issue of the Southern Medical Journal, Greenberg and colleagues from the Children’s National Medical Center and The George Washington University School of Medicine in Washington, DC, report their findings on a longitudinal survey of pediatric residents with respect to identifying any change in empathy, sense of power, and personality during the course of their 3-year residency.¹ The authors discussed their conclusions that pediatric resident empathy, as indicated by anonymous surveys using validated instruments, did not decrease between postgraduate years one and three, and that there was no inverse relation between self-perceptions of power and empathy as is present in the business literature. They also identified cogent potential limitations of this single-institution study. Their findings contrasted with studies of other specialty residents and medical students that indicated a diminishment in empathy during the course of their education and training.