tEACH Forum – What are empathy maps and how could they help develop empathy in healthcare settings?

Speakers: India Pinker and Andy Ward

India Pinker is a PhD Student in the School of Medicine at the University of St Andrews. She researches and writes on Clinical Empathy in practice and has a background in Health Care Communication and Health Psychology. As part of her PhD thesis, she investigates and synthesises current theories on clinical empathy to try to streamline the concept to encourage its integration in medical practice. She is currently adapting a novel training tool for Health Care Professionals that promotes clinical empathy, specifically to harness its benefits in medical settings.

Andy Ward works at Leicester Medical School where he leads a large module in the early years of the curriculum covering communication skills, examination skills, diagnostic reasoning, patient safety, diversity and patient-centred care. He is currently working on a project to increase teaching about empathy across the whole medical curriculum and worked with colleagues at St Andrews to introduce empathy mapping in Leicester. Clinically, Andy works as a GP providing primary care for asylum seekers and homeless patients in the city. He is the UK National Representative of EACH.Despite being a cornerstone of patient-centred care, there is increasing concern that empathy is not being sufficiently demonstrated by healthcare professionals. It is vital that healthcare education enables professionals to develop empathy for patients throughout their career.

Initially developed within service industries, empathy maps assist developers to understand customer perspectives. Research at the Universities of St Andrews, Aarhus and Leicester has been conducted to assess their impact on empathy in medical students and professionals following their introduction in medical training. This forum will introduce empathy mapping conceptually and encourage attendees to think about its use in healthcare education.

The session will consist of:

• Introduction to empathy maps & examples of its current integration in healthcare curricula
• Interactive Exercise to illustrate their use.
• Group Discussion of how they could be integrated in healthcare education.

This event is part of a monthly series organised by tEACH – the teaching subcommittee of EACH.

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Please register for this free event above