A script concordance test was developed as an innovative tool for assessing ethical reasoning ability. An SCT of 12 medical ethical vignettes were constructed from the UNESCO Casebook on Human Dignity and Human Rights. The vignettes were reviewed by a panel of 15 medical experts before administration to a panel of 18 clinicians. The clinician’s answers were used to constitute the scoring key. The SCT was then administered to first and final year medical students. Data were analysed using SPSS. Internal (...) consistency was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha. SCT performance was tested for association with sex, year of study and race by comparing the mean SCT scores between categories within each variable. Internal consistency as measured by Cronbach’s alpha values, ranging from 0.597 to 0.902, indicated high intra-vignette reliability for 10 of the vignettes. Inter-vignette reliability was high at 0.797. Mean SCT scores were not significantly different between students of different gender, year of study and ethnicity. However, each vignette was able to distinguish between overall poor and good test performers. The SCT was able to differentiate between students with varying degrees of ethical reasoning ability. (shrink)

Training residents to become humanistic physicians capable of empathy, compassionate communication, and holistic patient care is among our most important tasks as physician educators. Narrative medicine aims to foster those highly desirable characteristics, and previous studies have shown it to be successful in fostering self-reflection, emotional processing, and preventing burnout. We aimed to evaluate pediatric residents’ perceptions of a novel narrative medicine curriculum. After the initiation of a longitudinal narrative medicine curriculum, focus groups were conducted with residents who participated in (...) at least one narrative medicine session. The curriculum was viewed positively, and residents found the sessions to be helpful in developing empathy, offering a space for reflection, and introducing new perspectives. Challenges noted were perception of relevance, timing of sessions, and interpretation by non-native English-speaking residents. With attention to linguistics and thematic undertones, narrative medicine is a feasible, replicable, and accepted teaching modality for pediatric residents to foster empathy, process emotions, and participate in self-reflection. (shrink)