The Effect of Remote Treatment on Medical Provider Creative Thinking and Patient Disclosure

This study will link two participants: a final year medical student and an acting patient. Both will fill out consent forms outlining the study with the above purpose) standardized demographic information, and psychometric scales, including ones measuring empathy, extraversion, openness, working memory, health literacy, and fatigue. They will then be randomly put into a dyad (consisting of one medical student and one acting patient). The acting patient (who will required to be of good health- no chronic or current health issues) will be asked to pretend to have a rare or hard to diagnose health condition, having been given a document providing details of the health condition and presenting symptoms. They will be told that otherwise, they should respond to the questions as though they are themselves (for example, if the participant asked, "how tall are you", they can disclose their actual height). The medical student will be given instructions to ask all relevant questions, including a list of potential topics they should ask about, some of which are embarrassing but relevant (e.g., bowel movements). They will then be assigned to meet the other member of their dyad in one of two conditions: online or in person (unknown to the participants). They will then act as though this is a clinical interview, to diagnose the condition. Participants will be told the investigators will be changing the lighting and background noise as a sham treatment (white noise machine and desk lamp), concealing the study's true purpose: to understand how online versus offline environments the creativity of medical providers and the tendency toward disclosure. The interview will be recorded and transcribed. At the end of the interview, participants will be debriefed by the investigators, with an explanation of the deception, and be given the ability to withdraw their data at that point.