International experts call for all healthcare professionals to receive empathy training
Leading academics from around the globe have published a landmark paper which sets out an international agenda for promoting empathy in healthcare.
‘The Leicester empathy declaration: A model for implementing empathy in healthcare’ highlights the benefits of empathy-informed healthcare and urges all schools of medicine and nursing and healthcare systems to implement empathy and compassion training.
It has been published by leading lights from the Global Empathy in Healthcare Network who are working together to encourage countries to put empathy at the heart of healthcare.
Among those involved in the pivotal paper is Professor Jeremy Howick who is the director of the Stoneygate Centre for Empathic Healthcare, based at the University of Leicester, which is a founding member of the network. He said:
“There is extensive research which shows the positive impact of empathic healthcare interactions on people’s physical and psychological wellbeing.
“In many places, a shortage of empathy has been linked to avoidable patient harm, ranging from increased post-operative pain and poor medication adherence to preventable deaths.
“Empathic care is also associated with lower levels of burnout among healthcare professionals which is particularly important now as we’re seeing declining levels of wellbeing among healthcare students and practitioners.
“The benefits of empathic healthcare and the harm caused by its absence makes empathy training for all healthcare professionals a matter of vital ethical importance as well as being economically advantageous.”
To read the declaration, click here