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Barriers to Empathy: The Curriculum

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Exploring Empathy with Medical Students

Abstract

This chapter addresses the formal curriculum and its effects on empathy. The chapter begins with a discussion of whether empathy can be taught. The students describe a lack of teaching about empathy and the neglect of psychosocial aspects of the patient’s situation. They talk about the strong biomedical bias in their teaching and its negative effect of empathy. Other barriers such as negative role models, assessment and feedback are explored in relation to the student–patient relationship.

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  1. University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    David Ian Jeffrey

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  1. David Ian Jeffrey
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Correspondence to David Ian Jeffrey .

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Jeffrey, D.I. (2019). Barriers to Empathy: The Curriculum. In: Exploring Empathy with Medical Students. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11211-0_7

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