A Queensland medical school says its become the first in the country to select students based on their emotional intelligence, rather than solely on academic achievements.
Bond University has accepted its first intake of medical students selected under a new system that invites applicants with an ATAR score of 96 or above to take part in an emotional intelligence test. The top 240 candidates are then invited to interview for one of the 120 full-feeing paying domestic places.
The new admission criteria represent a departure from the old system in which applicants needed an ATAR score of 99 to be considered for interview for a place in the Bachelor of Medical Studies at private university on Queensland’s Gold Coast.
The change means that some candidates with the highest academic skills do not make it into medical school because of their poor emotional intelligence score, according to Dean of Medicine Professor Kirsty Forrest.
“We are slightly concerned that medical programs are attracting people who think you only need academic intelligence to become a good doctor, and that is simply not true,” she says.
“The fact is you don’t need an academic score that high to be a good doctor.”
Professor Forrest says emotional intelligence is just as essential as academic ability for a career in medicine.
“You need to be able to work in a team, to change behaviour, and to display kindness, consideration and empathy,” she says.
The university’s 40 minute Emotional Intelligence test consists of 141 questions that score individuals based on how well they recognise, understand, and manage emotions in themselves and in others and how they use this information to guide their decisions.
A question might ask an applicant to indicate the importance of displaying certain emotions when giving feedback to peer or colleague, or show an image of a person’s face and ask the applicant to identify the emotions being expressed.
“There has often been a perception that medical professionals should display no emotion, and this is likely contributing to the higher instances of poor wellbeing and mental health issues in medical students and practising doctors,” notes Professor Forrest.
“There has been talk of how medical school ‘knocks the empathy out of students ‘and we are looking at the bigger picture of how to ensure that is not the case.
Professor Forrest says Bond University is also looking at changing the way it assesses students to put more focus on the learning process, to remove some of the negative aspects of competitiveness.
“It is also about kindness. We believe that the competitiveness just to get into a medical program can result in students being very unkind to each other.