Recommendations:
This study emphasizes the need for integration of EI training into
medical education, especially in the clinical stage.
(8) (21)
Integration of cognition and emotion in medical studies is critical, and
the learning of EI through training programs would promote outstanding
medical care for the coming years. (9)
Some have suggested incorporating community-oriented medical education
(COME) into medical studies because it has been demonstrated an
effective strategy to create socially conscious doctors worldwide.
(5) Furthermore, students may need
continuous emotional support and extracurricular activities each period
to improve their EI, or at least prevent its deterioration. Studies have
emphasized that increasing extracurricular activities would increase EI
significantly (24); integration of
medical students into organizational work would also increase EI.
(35) Moreover, students’ hobbies should
be supported and encouraged, as these activities are critical in
providing students an outlet from the stressful medical environment,
thereby helping to decrease the incidence of burnout and psychological
disorders among medical students. (36)
As the difference between student knowledge of the signs and symptoms of
diseases and the clinical presentation of patients may affect EI, we
recommend the use of simulated patients during the beginning of clinical
training as a transition into dealing with real patients. This may
decrease that discordance and improve student EI. Similarly, because
student regret at studying medicine negatively impacts EI, meetings
should be held with pre-college and first-year students to explain to
them the reality of medical education (both positive and negative
aspects) and to emphasize that studying medicine should be their own
decision; this would help the discipline.
(5)
From the research standpoint, factors that affect EI remain unclear and
further studies are needed to assess those factors. This study is
precedent-setting in Palestine, but was applied to students of only two
universities. Therefore, further studies should be started that involve
all universities in Palestine with medical programs.