A medical student's perspective on the importance of empathy in patient-physician relationships and a reflection on how empathy was taught in his medical school.
The Columbia University Community Pediatrics Program incorporates cultural competency training into its curricula by requiring residents to participate in community service programs.
To be a useful tool for assessing quality of physician care, pay-for-performance must be designed to include process measures and to not penalize physicians for treating patients with difficult-to-manage conditions.
The Culture, Narrative, and Medicine course at Loyola University of Chicago's Stritch School of Medicine teaches cultural humility through literature and students' reflective writing.
Appropriate use of the pay-for-performance system may improve quality of care by counteracting physician incentives to overtreat in fee-for-service situations or undertreat in capitation plans.
The use of simulated patients in medical education helps students to develop communication skills needed to interact with patients when difficult circumstances arise.