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Managing the uncertainty of clinical practice represents a significant source of stress for clinicians, including medical students transitioning into the clinical workplace. Self-compassion, a strategy to better cope with stress and burnout, may represent a skill that can be leveraged to better prepare learners for the uncertainty inherent in clinical practice. A negative correlation between intolerance of uncertainty and self-compassion has been demonstrated in undergraduate students and in the general population. An examination of this relationship in medical students may help inform future curricular development for addressing burnout in undergraduate medical education. We electronically administered the Intolerance of Uncertainty Short Scale and the Self-Compassion Short Form to 273 third-year medical students from a single institution and analyzed data via regression. A significant negative correlation was found between intolerance of uncertainty and self-compassion (p

Introduction Diagnostic uncertainty abounds in medicine, and communication of that uncertainty is critical to the delivery of high-quality patient care. While there has been training in communicating diagnostic uncertainty directed towards residents, a gap remains in preparing medical students to understand and communicate diagnostic uncertainty. We developed a session to introduce medical students to diagnostic uncertainty and to practice communicating uncertainty using a checklist during role-play patient conversations. Methods This virtual session was conducted for third-year medical students at the conclusion of their core clerkships. It consisted of prework, didactic lecture, peer role-play, and debriefing. The prework included reflection prompts and an interactive online module. The role-play featured a patient complaining of abdominal pain being discharged from the emergency department without a confirmed diagnosis. Students participated in the role of patient, provider, or observer. Results Data from an anonymous postsession survey (76% response rate; 202 of 265 students) indicated that most students (82%; 152 of 185) felt more comfortable communicating diagnostic uncertainty after the session. A majority (83%; 166 of 201) indicated the session was useful, and most (81%; 149 of 184) indicated it should be included in the curriculum. Discussion This virtual session requires few facilitators; has peer role-play, eliminating the need for standardized patients; and is adaptable for in-person teaching. As its goal was to introduce an approach to communicating diagnostic uncertainty, not achieve mastery, students were not individually assessed for proficiency using the Uncertainty Communication Checklist. Students felt the session intervention was valuable.