Associations of medical student empathy with clinical competence.

Objective: Empathy is a crucial skill for medical students that can be difficult to evaluate. We examined if self-reported empathy in medical students was associated with clinical competence.

Methods: This study combined cross-sectional data from four consecutive years of medical students (N=590) from the Boston University School of Medicine.

A novel nutrition medicine education model: the Boston University experience.

Most deaths in the United States are preventable and related to nutrition. Although physicians are expected to counsel their patients about nutrition-related health conditions, a recent survey reported minimal improvements in nutrition medicine education in US medical schools in the past decade. Starting in 2006, we have developed an educational plan using a novel student-centered model of nutrition medicine education at Boston University School of Medicine that focuses on medical student-mentored extracurricular activities to develop, evaluate, and sustain nutrition medicine education.