Should medical school applicants be tested for emotional intelligence?

Each year medical school admissions officers try to identify the best, brightest and most suitable candidates from among the 37,000 who are competing for approximately 17,000 available slots. In so doing, these officers and their designees must determine whether applicants fit not only with the missions and priorities of their respective programs and institutions but also with the values and goals of the profession of medicine. Admissions committees typically consider a standard set of criteria, including undergraduate institution and field of study, undergraduate grade point average, Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) scores, letters of evaluation from faculty and premedical advisors, and interview scores. The overwhelming majority of accepted students go on to graduate from medical school, suggesting that current admissions processes—largely unchanged over the last half-century—are generally effective in identifying successful matriculants. However, inasmuch as graduation rates are a questionable proxy for quality, a more apt measurement outcome might be how well admissions committees are able to identify students who will make good doctors. Physician empathy and communication skills The progressively proactive roles of patients and a movement toward interprofessional care have highlighted the need for physicians who possess superior interpersonal communication skills. Public dissatisfaction in this area is high; patients complain that they are not listened to and that physicians fail to demonstrate appropriate levels of caring, empathy or even tact. The potential impact of such deficiencies can be more than simply disgruntled patients. Levinson and colleagues have gone so far as to establish an empirical link between communication behaviors and subsequent malpractice litigation among primary care physicians [1]. Recognizing that the practice of modern medicine calls for a broad range of skills, aptitudes and talents makes the task of assessing applicants' qualifications more challenging. Traditional cognitive criteria reflecting intellectual ability, supplemented with emphases on interpersonal skills, have further expanded to include an evaluation of altruism, cultural sensitivity and professionalism. Perhaps the most limiting factor in these efforts is a lack of reliable and valid measurement,