Weill Cornell Medicine – Qatar (WCM-Q) has announced that its Institute
for Population Health (IPH) is introducing a new training course –
entitled Mastering Emotional Intelligence – as part of its mission to
enhance the population’s health and build capacity.
The aim is to train healthcare professionals to be emotionally aware and
manage the source of their behaviour, reflect on their social awareness
and learn how to handle the triggers of their emotions for the benefit
of clinical care, healthcare outcomes, patient satisfaction and team
morale, WCM-Q has said in a statement.
Emotional intelligence (EQ) is made of four core skills: self-awareness,
self-management, social awareness and relationship management.
EQ is the foundation for a host of critical skills and the strongest predictor of high performance.
The one-day workshop will be delivered by Maha Elnashar and Huda
Abdelrahim from the Center for Cultural Competence in Healthcare
(CCCHC), a unit of the IPH, who are licensed by TalentSmart Inc, one of
the world’s top providers of EQ training.
Elnashar, director of CCCHC, said: “EQ is one of the essential skills
needed to work with and manage cultural diversity. Differences can
trigger various emotional reactions like anxiety and fear that can
extrude annoyance and apprehension; or they can stimulate curiosity and
interest to learn more.
“Dealing with this mixture of emotional responses requires emotional
intelligence. The need for well-developed emotional intelligence
training is particularly strong in Qatar because of the country’s wide
mix of cultures. WCM-Q is also planning to provide the training in
Arabic to target all levels of healthcare and educational
professionals.”
Published research shows that EQ education is needed in the medical
sector as it helps enhance interpersonal and social communication skills
and achieves a range of benefits including increased job satisfaction,
improved performance and better patient-doctor relationships.
It ensures people are treated equally and receive high-quality care.
For example, studies demonstrate that some patients fail to follow
instructions if they feel they have not been treated with sufficient
respect, while doctors may misinterpret these emotions and be unaware of
the patient’s negative feelings towards them.
Being emotionally intelligent means that individuals can recognise,
understand and manage their feelings in positive ways, allowing them to
better deal with highly stressful situations, improving their
communication skills and increasing empathy.
Dr Ravinder Mamtani, senior associate dean for population health,
capacity building and student affairs, said the course would be an
excellent fit for IPH’s mission, and that improving a person’s emotional
intelligence would allow them to view their feelings critically,
objectively and to react positively.
He added, “Since emotions influence our behaviour and reactions, the
regulation of emotions should be coupled with teaching. EQ is a flexible
set of skills that can be acquired and improved with practice over
time.
“This new course will enhance WCM-Q’s commitment to improving healthcare
across Qatar, providing innovative training to healthcare
professionals, allowing them to obtain new skills and so improving the
inpatient and outpatient experience for patients.”