Letter To the Editor: Emotional Intelligence of Medical Residents: Further Work Is Required

Ghajarzadeh and mohammadifar are to be praised for their excellent report into the emotional intelligence of their medical residents (1). their results are clear and at the end, they state that the findings “should be considered in education of medical residents”. certainly emotional intelligence is important in medicine and medical education – not least because it can help learners find their way around their new social environment (2). emotional intelligence could also be seen as core to the medical consultation – encoding as it does the ability to perceive, understand, manage and use emotions in one and others (3). some authorities say that emotional intelligence is not a form of intelligence but rather a set of skills (4). however, before we consider a wholesale roll-out of emotional intelligence training, we should consider the results in more detail and reflect on the question as to how these findings might be considered in the education of medical residents.