'Hidden' Med School Curriculum Hurts Empathetic Care

With April research showing medical interns spend very little time directly caring for patients, medical education is getting more bad press.

Danielle Ofri, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor of medicine at NYU School of Medicine, exposes the darker side of transitioning from the classroom to clinical medicine--students come in selfless and empathetic and leave jaded and embittered.

Empathy and moral reasoning begin to erode during the third year of medical school, with students daily witnessing both patients and doctors experience fear, anger, grief and humiliation, Ofri wrote in Slate.