“The noncognitive, personality domain is an untapped area for medical school admissions,” said Deniz S. Ones, a professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota and one of the authors of the study. “We typically address it in a more haphazard way than we do cognitive ability, relying on recommendations, essays and either structured or unstructured interviews. We need to close the loop on all of this.”
Some schools have tried to use a quantitative rating system to evaluate applicant essays and letters of recommendation, but the results remain inconsistent. “Even with these attempts to make the process more sophisticated, there is no standardization,” Dr. Ones said. “Some references might emphasize conscientiousness, and some interviewers might focus on extraversion. That nonstandardization has costs in terms of making wrong decisions based on personality characteristics.”
By using standardized assessments of personality, a medical school admissions committee can get a better sense of how a candidate stands relative to others. “If I know someone is not just stress-prone, but stress-prone at the 95th percentile rather than the 65th,” Dr. Ones said, “I would have to ask myself if that person could handle the stress of medicine.”
From: "Doctor and Patient - Looking Beyond MCATs to Pick Future Doctors - NYTimes.com."
Thanks @neilparikh for the link!
How will we assess future care providers on behavioral domains? Cognition, it seems, isn't all that counts when it comes to effective, empathic patient care and communications. Shocker.
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