A study conducted by the UC San Diego Physician Assessment and Clinical Education program (PACE) found that childhood adversity could potentially play a role in a physician’s later professional relationships.
The findings were published online October 31 in General Hospital Psychiatry.
Although UC San Diego is the site for PACE, an education and quality improvement program for health care professionals, physicians from across the nation and representing different specialties were referred to and enrolled in the course that was part of the study.
“We wanted to wrap our heads around some of the reasons why certain physicians may have challenges maintaining professional boundaries,” said Kai MacDonald, MD, lead author of the study and associate physician in the Departments of Psychiatry and Family Medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine. “Physicians are held to higher standards, so it’s critical they provide the highest quality of care with the utmost professionalism.”
The four-year study revealed that nearly two of three participating physicians reported having experienced a moderate or severe level of emotional neglect during childhood; one out of five described a moderate or severe level of overall childhood trauma and one-third said they had experienced another type of adversity, such as parental divorce or death.
[For more of this story go to http://health.ucsd.edu/news/re...fect-on-doctors.aspx]
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