Growing up and watching movies, people do witness scenes where the doctor gives the diagnosis of a chronic or terminal illness with absolutely no empathy or remorse. This also happens in real life. Individuals do wonder how medical professionals, be it a nurse, surgeon, or doctor, are not empathetic. No matter the diagnosis, the face remains poker-faced, with no expression or emotion.
Though this behaviour is considered professional, it has a lasting impact on the patient and their mental health. In the medical fraternity, it is an obligation not to have any personal relationship with patients. It is also advised to remain calm, no matter what the situation is. This behaviour of the medical fraternity at times makes patients’ illness unmanageable, as there is no emotional support or empathy around them to fight the illness.
Consider this real-life case: The mother of an orthopaedic surgeon collapsed at home. She was quickly admitted to her son’s hospital. She was quickly administered an ECG, Chest X-rays, and blood taken, and her heart was now functioning well. After two days, she was discharged. Her son was extremely proud of the hospital services. When he asked if she liked his hospital, her answer shocked him. She said that though the treatment was effective and well managed, her fears of dying and not meeting her grandchildren were absolutely overlooked. She also mentioned that her fears were overlooked and that she had a horrible time in her life(Howick et al.,2017).
This article aims to explore Clinical empathy, the importance of empathy and most importantly, why it is important to teach empathy to medical professionals.
Understanding Clinical Empathy
According to Howick et al. (2017), the medicine that is empathy-based tends to re-establish the relationship at the heart of healthcare. Practitioners often complain that paperwork, workload and burnout do not allow them to establish empathy. Due to this, patients have to suffer as there is no adequate communication and their needs are unmet, leading to a decrease in the quality of health care. Empathy is an emotional ability that allows individuals to understand what the other person is going through or stepping in other’s shoes to understand them. Similarly,” Clinical empathy is the ability of the physician to understand a patient’s illness experience, communicate this understanding and act collaboratively to create a treatment plan” (Gerstmann et al.,2023).
It can be said that modern medical professionals lose empathy during their training. Adverse attitude changes can be seen during medical training, and it has been happening for 100 years. The causes of empathy loss were recognised as: exhaustion due to the stress and burden of working with the acutely ill in high volume and working within health care systems that do not hold the values of empathy and compassion(Meisenberg,2025).
Read More: Empathy in Action: How Communication Skills Foster Compassion and Inclusion
Factors Influencing the levels of empathy among clinicians
- Gender and Empathy: In a research study, it was reported that female practitioners were more empathetic than male practitioners. This result was consistent with previous studies, as women are emotionally sensitive and can exhibit this trait in clinical practice. Men, on the other hand, focus on independence, authority, and power, whereas women are emotionally supportive and make attempts to build interpersonal relationships with patients.
- Marital Status and Empathy: Divorced, unmarried, and single individuals were not more empathetic than married individuals. Married individuals exhibited emotional understanding and communication importance, which manifested in their professional life, leading them to become empathetic people. One of the potent factors of an emotional support system is marriage.
- Speciality and Empathy: The research concluded that there was no connection between empathy and specialisation. It can be said that empathy develops on an individual basis rather than on the basis of a professional setting.
- Provider experience, educational attainment, and empathy: There was no connection between the years of practice and empathy levels. This finding indicates that empathy is not influenced by the length of practice. Considering educational attainment, it did not show significant associations with levels of empathy. Studies so far have suggested that educational structures do influence empathy(Gohri et al.,2025).
Understanding Empathy Decline
There are some concrete reasons behind the decline amongst physicians. The first one being that as soon as medical students enter their third year, there can be seen a rapid decline in empathy. After regularly seeing their patients and their pain, they no longer feel empathetic. Another reason behind the decline in empathy is also discussed on a strong basis is that today Clinicians make use of diagnostic technology rather than using manual ways of diagnosing patients. When Clinicians take interviews and talk to patients about their conditions, it helps in building interpersonal relationships, and treatment plans can be created effectively. Today, clinicians are heavily dependent on lab tests.
Burnout and exhaustion are other prominent reasons due to which there is a rapid decline in empathy levels. Doctors do not feel like establishing healthy interpersonal relationships with patients if they themselves are exhausted with work. It can also be said that hospitals, healthcare system do not uphold empathy and compassion. They primarily focus on treating patients and receiving the treatment amount on time. Empathy decline among clinicians is real(Mesinberg, 2025; Howick et al, 2017; Gersmann et al.,2023; Professional Boundaries, Inc., 2016 ).
Understanding Patient Care
As much as doctors and surgeons are crucial to the healthcare system, nurses are also an equally important component to the healthcare system. One of the cornerstones of efficient nursing practice is to know how a patient behaves and to understand their needs. When a nurse understands what the requirements of a patient are, they can care better, work towards safety and foster a healthy interpersonal relationship. Empathy, though, is a basic need and a basic ability, but to become an empathic person, medical professionals should understand and have a basic understanding of the important theories that govern any individual’s behaviour.
- Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: Medical professionals should know that physiological and safety, love and belonging and self-esteem are the basic needs. Individuals work towards fulfilling these needs. Considering the health care system, these needs are often overlooked and are not considered. This leads to empathy not being developed.
- Health Beliefs Model: This model explains that patients take their conditions seriously if they understand that it is serious and that taking good care becomes important. Intervention based on this model has shown patient motivation, taking medication on time and quality of life(Ezakaden,2025).
Can empathy be taught?
According to Jeffery et al. (2016), empathy is more than being kind or expressing compassion. Empathy in the true sense involves understanding an individual’s thoughts and feelings with psychological insight. In contemporary times, there is a growing pressure on medical professionals to develop an empathetic approach towards patients. Today, medical schools do include a syllabus on empathy and skills. It is a debate whether empathy can be taught in a true sense.
Empathy is more of a personal virtue. It is primarily shaped by personal factors, subjective experience and moral development taught by parents. Though certain viewpoints suggest that empathy can be developed through training in communication, role modelling by seniors, and reflective practices. Among all, role modelling is proven to be effective because junior medical professionals can actually imbibe empathy by looking at the behaviour of their seniors. This analysis concluded that empathy is not a technical skill like surgery, which can be taught.
According to James (2023), researcher Helen Risse, who provides empathy training and publishes a research paper on it, has reported that with empathy training, empathy can be taught to a certain level. Her team provides training that involves the healing process, emotional awareness and self-management strategies. Though empathy levels may increase with training, they can also decline the moment training stops.
Why is empathy needed?
According to Kourakos et al. (2018), both medical professionals and patients suggest that one of the most humane practices and components of healthcare is empathy. A total of 80% of patients recommend physicians who are empathic in nature to other patients. Health providers who are empathic with their patients were able to guide their patients effectively, and patients started taking medicines on time, which means they adhered to their medicines. There was an increase in patient satisfaction, good patient rapport, better diagnosis, positive health outcomes, absence of stress, etc.
Considering patients with cancer, they suffer emotional pain, sadness and a constant fear. When there was an empathetic approach and effective communication from their doctors, they showed a sense of safety, and they were correlated with low levels of distress. There was an increase in self – efficacy. Research also shows that even cold when treated with empathy were cured within a short duration of time. Clinical empathy is a potent factor and serves the well-being of both clinicians and patients. Empathy is also related to job satisfaction and a better workplace environment for medical professionals. Essentially, clinicians can diagnose better with no errors.
Conclusion
An approach with emphatic care is beneficial for both the patient and the medical professionals. Be it acute illness or chronic illness, empathy plays its role effectively. Empathy brings compassion, kindness and a feeling of safety that health providers are actually caring for the patient and are seriously involved with the treatment. Recovery rate increases when there is some warmth added to the bitter medicine. Empathy definitely acts as a prescription for better care.
References +
- Howick, J., & Rees, S. (2017). Overthrowing barriers to empathy in healthcare: empathy in the age of the Internet. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 110(9), 352–357. https://doi.org/10.1177/0141076817714443
- Jeffrey D, Downie R. Empathy – Can it be Taught? Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. 2016;46(2):107-112. doi:10.4997/jrcpe.2016.210
- Gohri, J., Kalra, S., & Hegde, S. (2025). Factors influencing empathy level among healthcare professionals: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of education and health promotion, 14, 389. https://doi.org/10.4103/jehp.jehp_1647_24
- Professional Boundaries, Inc. (2016, December). The decline of physician empathy. PBI Education. PBI Education article
- James, T. A. (2023, January 12). Building empathy into the structure of health care. Harvard Medical School Professional, Corporate, and Continuing Education. Harvard Medical School article
- Ezakaden, E. D. (2025). Understanding patient behaviour: A nursing review. International Journal of Nursing Research, 1(3), 42–45. https://doi.org/10.31690/ijnr.2025.v01i03.009
- Gertsman, S., Ene, I. C., Palmert, S., Liu, A., Makkar, M., Shao, I., Shapiro, J., & Williams, C. (2023). Clinical empathy as perceived by patients with chronic illness in Canada: a qualitative focus group study. CMAJ open, 11(5), E859–E868. https://doi.org/10.9778/cmajo.20220211
- Kourakos, M. I., Vlachou, E. D., & Kelesi, M. N. (2018). Empathy in the health professions: An ally in the care of patients with chronic diseases. International Journal of Health Sciences & Research, 8(2), 233–241.
