The ability to establish psychological safety is necessary to create conditions for a functionally healthy team in a collaborative care environment. It is critical to patient engagement and trust-building, and can lead to improved problem identification, care management, and patient safety. Despite its recognized importance, psychological safety building rarely shows up as a targeted skill for development in training programs in the health professions. In this presentation, we will present the value of leveraging emotional intelligence (EI) skills as foundational to the creation psychologically safe interactions through understanding oneself and one's impact on others. We will present our work with medical students and residents in developing targeted EI skills and de-stigmatizing self-disclosure to support psychological safety building with others. Participants will have the opportunity to reflect on their own pertinent EI skills in an activity related to psychological safety building.
David Farmer, Ex Dir IP and Behavioral Health, University of North Texas, Health Science Center - Fort Worth David Farmer PhD, MAMFC