Background & aim: Empathy is an important component of establishing effective communication and achieving optimal clinical results. Establishing empathic communication with pregnant women improves satisfaction, mutual trust, participation in treatment, control over delivery process, and maternal health. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effect of empathy training on empathic skills...

In the last decade, the phenomenon of empathy has received widespread attention by the field of social neuroscience. This has provided fresh insights for theoretical models of empathy, and substantially influenced the academic and public conceptions about this complex social skill. The present paper highlights three key issues which are often linked to empathy, but which at the same time might ...

She persuaded Vodacom Foundation Chairman, Mthobi Tyamzashe (himself born with a cleft lip), to sit in on one infant’s life-changing operation, in spite of his deep aversion to hospitals. To make doubly sure, Naiker got Vodacom’s then CEO, Alan Knott-Craig (who spent the first 5 years of his life in leg calipers and much later suffered a life-changing near-fatal heart attack), to attend a subse...

In their excellent quantitative analysis of students’ valuation of gross anatomy as an ‘‘important’’ course, Böckers et al. (2010) come to the conclusion that this high valuation could depend on the students’ perceived growth in professional competencies during the course. The students counted among these competencies their increased abilities in teamwork, time management, learning strategies, ...

BACKGROUND Advanced communication skills are vital for allied health professionals, yet students often have limited opportunities in which to develop them. The option of increasing clinical placement hours is unsustainable in a climate of constrained budgets, limited placement availability and increasing student numbers. Consequently, many educators are considering the potentials of alternative...

BACKGROUND With the development of pharmacotherapy and radiotherapy, cancer treatment is being shifted from surgical to outpatient services, consequently increasing insurance-covered pharmacies' frequency of dealing with cancer patients. As the psychology of these patients is complex, it is necessary for pharmacists to educate them in consideration of their cognitive/medical and psychosocial as...

Empathy is an ability and skill that can be learned and developed through appropriate education and practice. While the importance of nurses' empathy is widely acknowledged, little is known about the impact of passing through the psychiatric nursing and mental health educational experience at the Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University on students' level of empathy. This study aimed to assess...

Objectives: This cross-sectional study examines the selfreported empathy levels of undergraduate students in five different health sciences disciplines before and after one year of training at the St Augustine Campus, University of the West Indies. Methods: Students enrolled into the schools of dentistry, pharmacy, medicine, veterinary medicine and nursing self administered the Jefferson Scale ...