Erosion of empathy during medical training by gender. A cross-sectional study.

Introduction: Empathy erosion may be defined as a sudden decline in the levels of empathy that occurs as of the third year of medical school and continues until the fifth year. According to some authors, this process is normal during medical training and may be considered a model of empathic behavior. The objective of this study was to verify whether empathy erosion is a general phenomenon in the schools of medicine included in the study and its relation to gender.