Medical Students Immersed in a Hyper-Realistic Surgical Training Environment Leads to Improved Measures of Emotional Resiliency by Both Hardiness and Emotional Intelligence Evaluation

Abstract

BackgroundBurnout is being experienced by medical students, residents, and practicing physicians at significant rates. Higher levels of Hardiness and Emotional Intelligence may protect individuals against burnout symptoms. Previous studies have shown both Hardiness and Emotional IntelIigence protect against detrimental effects of stress and can be adapted through training; however, there is limited research on how training programs affect both simultaneously. Therefore, the objective of this study was to define the association of Hardiness and Emotional Intelligence and their potential improvement through hyper realistic immersion simulation training in military medical students.MethodsParticipants in this study consisted of 68 second year medical students representing five medical schools who were concurrently enrolled in the United States military scholarship program. During a six day hyper-realistic surgical simulation training course, students rotated through different roles of a medical team and responded to several mass-casualty scenarios. Hardiness and Emotional Intelligence were assessed using the Hardiness Resilience Gauge (HRG) and the Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-I 2.0) respectively, at two time points: on arrival (pre-event) and after completion of the course (post-event).ResultsHardiness and Emotional Intelligence scores and sub scores consistently improved from pre-event to post-event assessments. No difference in training benefit was observed between genders but differences were observed by age where age was more often associated with Emotional Intelligence. In addition, factor analysis indicated that the HRG and EQ-I 2.0 assessment tools measured predominately different traits although they share some commonalities in some components.ConclusionThis study indicates that Hardiness and Emotional Intelligence scores can be improved through immersion training in military medical students. Results from this study support the use of training course interventions and prompt the need for long term evaluation of improvement strategies on mitigating burnout symptoms.

Emergency Stress, Hardiness, Coping Strategies and Burnout in Health Care and Emergency Response Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Previous studies have identified positive coping strategies and hardiness as buffers against the negative effects of stress in general (Kobasa, 1982 ; Kobasa et al, 1982 ). Hardiness, defined by Kobasa ( 1979 ) as a personality trait consisting of three fundamental characteristics (commitment, control and challenge), is a protective factor against the negative effects of stress including burnout (White et al, 2020 ; Bartone et al, 2021 ). Several recent studies have also found that this psychological resource is a significant buffer against the adverse psychological effects of stress related to the COVID pandemic, for Health Care and Emergency workers (Maiorano et al, 2020 ; Vagni et al, 2020a ) and also in the general population (Dymecka et al, 2021 ).…”

MEDTHINKER: Novel computer‐based simulation to assess technical and nontechnical skills using medical content in healthcare providers

“…2017; Kobasa, 1979; White et al. 2020) have demonstrated that better ability to adapt protects against burnout. MEDTHINKER assesses adaptability while concurrently assessing clinical performance and can be used to evaluate the impact of physician burnout on clinical performance.…”

Educational interventions to improve emotional intelligence in nursing and medical students: A systematic review

“…Of the 21 articles, 12 met eligibility criteria and were included in the review. [28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39] Characteristics of the included studies can be found in Appendix 1. Of the 9 studies that were not included in the review, 3 utilized interventions lasting longer than one standard semester, [8,9,40] 2 were performed on nonnursing/medical students, [10,41] 2 utilized unestablished or unvalidated EI instruments, [42,43] 1 did not report the EI instrument utilized, [44] and 1 did not report any description of the intervention content.…”