Perspective: Can emotional intelligence training serve as an alternative approach to teaching professionalism to residents?

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is a well-developed construct and consists of four types of abilities: emotional self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. EI is grounded in effective performance and leadership success rather than in moral right or wrong. EI abilities suggest specific curricula which, when successfully taught by faculty and learned by physicians-in-training, would allow trainees’ professionalism to be recognized and measured in ways that are not currently possible with existing hidden curricula.