Polski merkuriusz lekarski : organ Polskiego Towarzystwa Lekarskiego
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Pol. Merkur. Lekarski · Oct 2010
Review[Empathy-building of physicians. Part II--Early exposure of students to patient's situation].
Medical training should aim at providing students' with opportunities to learn about and explore their cognitive and emotional responses to patients' illness and suffering. The training should also foster understanding of a patient's experiences and encourage empathic communication. Teaching approaches that use experiential learning methods seem to serve these educational goals, well. ⋯ We searched PubMed, ProQuest, ERIC, MedLine and Polish Medical Bibliography (Polska Bibliografia Lekarska--published from 1990 to the present--for studies that address methods for teaching empathy to medical students. Analysis of papers reporting the use of methods allowing early exposure to patient's situation indicate, that students reported a positive learning experience that has allowed to perceive patients as human beings, not as disease. The results show that, irrespective of the method used, empathy may be fostered in the course of medical training.
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Pol. Merkur. Lekarski · Oct 2010
Review[Empathy-building of physicians. Part I--A review of applied methods].
Clinical empathy is a multidimensional concept consisting of four attributes: cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and motivational. Empathy involves an interest in and understanding of patients' experiences, concerns, and perspectives associated with illness combined with a capacity to care and an intention to help. Empathy in the context of clinical care is believed to be beneficial not only to the patients, but also to health professionals. ⋯ Results of the literature search reveal, that medical educators have employed a variety of methods and approaches to enhance students' empathy. In this review, we grouped these methods into five approaches, namely, early clinical exposure, playing a role of a patient, exposure to literature and the arts, improving skills associated with empathy, exposure to role models. These methods will be dealt with in details in the follow up papers.