Purpose: Empathy tends to decline during medical education, typically beginning in the third year of medical school and often continuing throughout residency and the physician's medical career. The purpose of this study was to determine if first year medical student empathy is affected by small group interactions with patients with neurological disorders, and to investigate if changes in empathy persisted over time.
Materials And Methods: Eighty first year medical students participating in a Neuroscience Module interacted with a variety of neurological patients in a small group informational session.