1S.Y. Chu is associate professor, School of Medicine, Tzu Chi University, and Department of Medical Education and Pediatrics, Buddhist Tzu Chi General Hospital, Hualien, Taiwan.

2T.C. Tseng is a medical student, School of Medicine, Tzu Chi University, Hualien, Taiwan.

3Y.C. Ho is professor, Institute of Education, Tzu Chi University, Hualien, Taiwan.

4G.F. Tseng is professor, Department of Anatomy, School of Medicine, and director, Medical Simulation Center, Tzu Chi University, Hualien, Taiwan.

Acknowledgments: The authors wish to thank the faculty and staff of the Department of Anatomy, the Medical Simulation Center (MSC), and the School of Medicine; the secretariat of Tzu Chi University (TCU); Tzu Chi volunteers; and dharma masters of the Jing Si Abode for their assistance and support in running the silent mentor program (SMP). In addition, the authors are grateful to Dr. Elise Anne DeVido (associate professor and head) and Ms. Jenny Lee (lecturer) of the Foreign Language Education Center of the TCU for reading and editing this article.

Funding/Support: None reported.

Other disclosures: None reported.

Ethical approval: The study was deemed exempt from Institutional Review Board review by the Research Ethics Committee of the Hualien Tzu Chi General Hospital (IRB110-106-C).

Data: The letters used for this analysis were open access materials in the SMP yearbook on the MSC of the TCU website (http://www.msc.tcu.edu.tw/ebook.html). The authors have permission from the SMP of TCU for the present study.

Correspondence should be addressed to Guo-Fang Tseng, Department of Anatomy, School of Medicine, Tzu Chi University, No. 701, Sec. 3, Zhongyang Rd., Hualien City, Hualien County 970374, Taiwan; telephone: +886 (3)8565301, ext. 7162; e-mail: [email protected].

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