title: Can empathy be taught? Reflections from a medical student active-listening workshop.
abstract: Medical students deserve training in active listening and counseling before they encounter patients in distress. At the Alpert Medical School of Brown University we created and evaluated a workshop that trains first-year medical students to assess patients' emotional states and express empathy in an efficient and effective manner. Using second-year students as near-peer facilitators, we integrated the workshop into the existing preclinical first-year curriculum. We found that students' self-reported comfort in counseling a patient experiencing an emotionally challenging situation increased from 27% to 79% after the 90-minute workshop.
authors.affiliation: Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.
authors.forename: Lianna
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Karp
mesh_terms: D057189:Checklist; D003376:Counseling / Q000193:education*; D003479:Curriculum; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate; D004645:Empathy; D006801:Humans; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D012577:Schools, Medical; D057566:Self Report; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology*
keywords: Empathy; active listening; medical students