Developing Clinical Empathy: Making a Difference in Patient Care (FutureLearn)

Showing an understanding of a patient’s situation is one of the most important relationship-building skills that a healthcare provider can have. This is widely recognised in healthcare: the NHS in the UK recruits for compassion as one of its core values, and medical schools look for this in applicants at admissions interviews.

What topics will you cover?

- What is empathy?

- The importance of empathy in healthcare

- Empathetic opportunities and responses

- The challenges of showing empathy

- Building resilience

Learning on this course

You can take this self-guided course and learn at your own pace. On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you'll be able to...

- Describe the difference between empathy and sympathy

- Explore the use of emotional and cognitive empathy

- Explore the importance of empathy in healthcare

- Identify empathic opportunities

- Reflect on verbal and non-verbal empathic responses

-Discuss the challenges of being empathic as a healthcare professional

- Identify the importance of self-awareness and building resilience for empathic practice

Who is the course for?

The course is suitable for anybody engaged in healthcare who interacts with patients and would like to develop their empathic practice. This may include undergraduate students undertaking medical or healthcare-focused degrees, or even those looking to work in healthcare or applying to study healthcare qualifications. The learning outcomes for this course are transferable across all healthcare specialities and can be applied worldwide regardless of the type of the health care system.