Maladaptive Perfectionism, Impostorism, and Cognitive Distortions: Threats to the Mental Health of Pre-clinical Medical Students.

Objective: While medical student wellness has been a subject of recent study and discussion, current efforts may fail to address possible underlying, harmful cognitive distortions regarding academic performance. The authors sought to examine dysfunctional thoughts (maladaptive perfectionism, impostor phenomenon) and negative feelings (shame, embarrassment, inadequacy) that may contribute to poor mental health in pre-clinical medical students.

Methods: A survey was administered to first-year medical students at Saint Louis University that included assessments for maladaptive perfectionism, impostor phenomenon, depression, and anxiety, as well as questions about feelings of shame, embarrassment, inadequacy, comparison, and self-worth.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Maladaptive Perfectionism in Medical Students: A Preliminary Investigation.

Objectives: Maladaptive perfectionism is associated with psychological distress and psychopathology. Medical students have been found to be particularly prone to maladaptive perfectionism. Recent research has indicated that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) that targets unhealthy perfectionism leads to reductions in perfectionism and related distress.

Mistreatment of medical students in the third year may not be the problem.

Mistreatment and abuse of medical students has been recognized as a significant problem in medical schools. We believe, however, that the problem of mistreatment has been viewed incorrectly. This misperception of mistreatment exists in two primary ways.

Medical student mental health 3.0: improving student wellness through curricular changes.

Medical education can have significant negative effects on the well-being of medical students. To date, efforts to improve student mental health have focused largely on improving access to mental health providers, reducing the stigma and other barriers to mental health treatment, and implementing ancillary wellness programs. Still, new and innovative models that build on these efforts by directly addressing the root causes of stress that lie within the curriculum itself are needed to properly promote student wellness.

The next generation of doctoring.

The authors reflect on the creation of the Doctoring program at the UCLA School of Medicine two decades ago. Although Doctoring--at UCLA and other institutions where it has been implemented--has successfully taught large numbers of students psychosocial content and communications skills that are often overlooked in traditional medical school curricula and has had an impact on the larger culture of medical education, the authors believe that its full promise remains unfulfilled. Of the many practical difficulties they encountered in creating and implementing this comprehensive program, the greatest barriers, by far, were cultural.

Association of medical student burnout with residency specialty choice.

Context: Given the trend among medical students away from primary care medicine and toward specialties that allow for more controllable lifestyles, the identification of factors associated with specialty choice is important. Burnout is one such factor. The purpose of this study was to examine the associations between burnout and residency specialty choice in terms of provision for a less versus more controllable lifestyle (e.

Associations of medical student personality and health/wellness characteristics with their medical school performance across the curriculum.

Purpose: To assess the relationships of cognitive and noncognitive performance predictors to medical student preclinical and clinical performance indicators across medical school years 1 to 3 and to evaluate the association of psychological health/wellness factors with performance.

Method: In 2010, the authors conducted a cross-sectional, correlational, retrospective study of all 175 students at the Saint Louis University School of Medicine who had just completed their third (first clinical) year. Students were asked to complete assessments of personality, stress, anxiety, depression, social support, and community cohesion.

Medical school curricular reform: fourth-year colleges improve access to career mentoring and overall satisfaction.

Despite the trend toward curricular reform in the preclinical and core clerkship years, the fourth year of medical school is commonly unstructured, allowing students to take multiple "audition electives" in preparation for residency. Students struggle to identify mentors in their intended specialty in time to plan a well-rounded elective schedule and to prepare adequately for residency selection. The authors described the impact that an innovative fourth-year curriculum, the "College Program" at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California-Los Angeles, which focuses on mentoring and required curricular components, has had on student perceptions of access to career mentors and overall satisfaction with the fourth-year experience.

Curricular reform of the 4th year of medical school: the colleges model.

Background: The practice of medicine has changed dramatically over the last 3 decades. Medical education has struggled to keep up with these changes, with only limited success. The 4th year of medical school offers a tremendous opportunity for curricular innovation, but little change has occurred in the past 30 years.