| Popis: |
Existing research suggests that clinical empathy scores decline among medical students as they transition from pre-clinical to clinical studies. Scholars have attributed these declines to the gap between students’ expectations of medical school and the reality of their experiences, socialization via the “informal” and “hidden” curriculums, and variable clinical empathy training. Little is known, however, about how students develop and understand empathy during pre-medical years and how emotional capital accrued during this time shapes emotional socialization in medical school and beyond. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 25 pre-medical students at a midwestern university, I find that pre-medical students: believe empathy is a crucial component of medical practice; strive to find a balance between emotional engagement and detached concern; and are divided about whether empathy is innate or learned. Applying a life stories (Jenkins et al. 2018) and emotion practice (Erickson and Stacey 2013; Cottingham and Erickson 2019) framework to these data, I argue that the emotional socialization of pre-medical students is a crucial period of socialization that informs how trainees learn about and enact empathy over time. |
