Fifty Years of Findings from the Jefferson Longitudinal Study of Medical Education

​Joseph S. Gonnella received his B.A. from Dartmouth College (summa cum laude) and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School. He has been awarded the Commendatore dell'Ordine della Stella della Solidarieta Italiana; The Grande Ufficiale by the president of the Italian Republic; And The Dongbaeg Medal by the President of Korea; The Presidential Medal by Dartmouth College; and the Presidential Citation by Thomas Jefferson University. He has received honorary degrees from the University of Chieti, Italy. Soonchunhyang University, Korea; International Medical University of Malaysia; The University of Minho, Portugal. He received the Abraham Flexner Award from the Association of American Medical Colleges; and the Strittmatter Award from the Philadelphia County Medical Society.
Clara A. Callahan received her B.A. degree in anthropology from Wayne State University. She attended the Medical College of Pennsylvania, where she did two years of her pediatric residencybefore moving to Jefferson to complete her last year of residency training. Dr. Callahan was appointed to the Pediatrics faculty in 1982 and joined the Dean’s Staff of the Medical College in 1987. After initially working in Student Affairs, she became the Dean for Admissions in 1999. Given Dr. Callahan’s long time involvement with medical students, it is not surprising that much of her research centers on the performance on students in medical school and beyond.

Jon Veloski’s career began in 1970 at Thomas Jefferson University in information technology, and he moved to the medical college in 1973 to develop the database of the Jefferson Longitudinal Study. During the past 50 years he published over 150 scientific research papers in peer-reviewed journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, Academic Medicine, and other U.S and international journals. While the majority were based on data in the Jefferson Longitudinal Study reported herein, many used new data sets constructed with funding from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education, The American Board of Family Medicine, and the American Board of Internal Medicine. He completed his B.S. at Drexel University, and his M.S. and doctoral coursework in measurement, evaluation and research at the University of Pennsylvania.

Jennifer DeSantis received her M.Ed. from Stanford University and her B.A. from Vassar College. Her work focuses on empathy in medical education and health care both at Jefferson University, as well as nationally and internationally in collaboration with other institutions. Her background is in educational research and psychological sciences. 

Mohammadreza Hojat received his B.A. degree in educational psychology from Pahlavi University(currently University of Shiraz), his M.A. degree in psychology from the University of Tehran, and his Ph.D. in psychological services from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Hojat is a licensed psychologist, and has published more than 270 articles in peer-reviewed journals and 13 book chapters on educational, psychological, and social issues. Dr. Hojat has developed 10 psychometrically sound instruments (including the well-known Jefferson Scale of Empathy) for the assessment of health professions education and patient outcomes. Dr. Hojat’s research on measurement, development, erosion, enhancement, and correlates of empathy in health professions education and patient care has received broad media coverage, featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer, the National Public Radio and television program segments. Dr. Hojat has served as a co-editor of two books: Loneliness:Theory, Research, and Applications (Sage Publications, 1987), and Assessment Measures in Medical School, Residency, and Practice: The Connections (Springer, 1993). The second edition of his seminal book “Empathy in Health Professions Education and Patient Care” was published in 2016 (Springer International Publishing).