Medical school, psychosocial attitudes, and gender.

A scale measuring empathy and a scale measuring attitudes toward social issues and human relations in health care were administered to medical students when they were applicants to medical school and again midway through their third year. Students in their third year exhibited less positive and/or more negative attitudes compared to their scores as applicants. The changes were largest in areas relating to social issues, such as government involvement in health care, and least in areas relating to human relations, such as the role of social factors as determinants of a patient's health or illness. There were few differences between women and men on these scales. These data suggest that attitudes toward the interpersonal aspect of patient care may be less severely affected by the medical school experience than previously expected, and that the medical school experience does not affect women's attitudes differently than it does men's.