On Soft Skills and Physicians

[seeking1]

I noticed in recent times the sheer number of posts about med school admissions and the great "soft skills" one is supposed to have going into medical school. I've seen people on this board variously tear into the idea of soft skills, or alternatively praise the idea of soft skills.

 

Interestingly, a writer and trainee physician at the New York Times wrote an editorial on a topic similar to the development and use of soft skills in medicine: The Downside of Doctors Who Feel Your Pain.

 

I feel that this is an excellent opportunity to start up a conversation about how people view the development, evaluation and use of soft skills in doctors. Is it worth it? Should it be considered in medical school admissions? If so, to what degree? Is it a sensible idea to use soft skills ratings in deciding physician advancement in roles in the workplace? Is this focus on soft skills just a product of our context (i.e. in 40 years will we look back and think we were very irrational)?

[keepontrying]

Someone has posted this article in the general premed forum already. But to answer your question, I think the only soft skills that are important for physicians are communication and sensitivity. Things like empathy are pretty vague IMO - I mean, how can you really determine if someone is empathetic or not unless you really know him/her? Overall, I think some soft skills - not all - are just as important as academic skills. Skills that "define" physicians in societal perspective (empathy, altruistic, etc) - ones that put the profession on a noble pedestal - should not be part of the evaluation process because you can't possibly determine that.