Compassionate Behavior of Clinical Faculty: Associations with Role Modelling and Gender Specific Differences

TL;DR

This study shows that compassionate behavior from doctors influences how they are seen as role models, with male doctors benefiting more from showing compassion than female doctors.

Contribution

The study reveals gender-specific differences in how compassionate behavior affects role modelling perceptions among clinical faculty.

Findings

Female faculty scored higher on compassionate behavior than male faculty.

Compassionate behavior was positively linked to being seen as a role model in all three roles (person, teacher, physician).

Male faculty saw greater positive impact on their role model status from compassionate behavior compared to female faculty.

Abstract

For future doctors, learning compassion skills is heavily dependent on female and male faculty’s role modelling in practice. As such, more insight into the relationships between faculty’s compassionate behavior, faculty gender and role modelling is needed.

In this cross-sectional survey, we analyzed 12416 resident evaluations of 2399 faculty members across 22 Dutch hospitals. The predictor variables were: observed compassionate behavior, faculty gender (reference category: female), and an interaction term between those two. Our outcome variables were: person, teacher and physician role model. All variables, except for faculty gender, were scored on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 “totally disagree” to 7 “totally agree”.

Female faculty scored slightly but significantly higher (M = 6.2, SD = 0.7) than male faculty (M = 5.9, SD = 0.6) on observed compassionate behavior. Observed compassionate behavior was significantly positively associated with being seen as a role model teacher (b = 0.695; 95% CI = 0.623 – 0.767), physician (b = 0.657; 95% CI = 0.598 – 0.716) and person (b = 0.714; 95% CI = 0.653 – 0.775). Male gender showed significant negative associations with role model teacher (b = –0.847; 95% CI = –1.431 – –0.262), physician (b = –0.630, 95% CI = –1.111 – –0.149) and person (b = –0.601, 95% CI = –1.099 – –0.103). The interaction term showed positive significant associations with role model teacher (b = 0.157, 95% CI = 0.061 – 0.767), physician (b = 0.116, 95% CI = 0.037 – 0.194) and person (b = 0.102, 95% CI = 0.021 – 0.183).

Dutch residents, in general, observed their faculty to be compassionate towards patients and families and faculty’s observed compassionate behavior is related to being seen as a role model. However, male faculty benefit more from demonstrating compassion, as it has a greater positive influence on their perceived role model status compared to female faculty.