A toolkit for a workshop-based approach to teaching health professionals about empathy. Includes video simulations of empathic interventions by a range of health professionals; workshop plan and resources; comprehensive bibliography related to the project.
Who was involved?
Monash University (Melbourne) lead the project team, from collaborators from Deakin University (Melbourne), University of South Australia (Adelaide) and Edith Cowan University (Perth). The ‘research team page’ lists all the people involved.
Why develop this piece of eLearning?
From the ‘About’ page of the project:
Empathy is a vital characteristic for all health professionals. However, it is also a difficult behavioural trait and professional skill set to teach and assess; as a result it is often a neglected component of health science curriculum.
The project has two aims:
- to develop a toolkit that includes a range of interprofessional empathy DVD simulations and workshop resources, and
- to evaluate the toolkit through exploring empathic behaviours and interprofessional levels pre- and post-involvement in a DVD simulation workshop.
From: http://med.monash.edu.au/med/cehpp/altc-empathy/about.html
Tools / Resources available for use from this initiative:
Link from the home page to the Video Case Studies and the Facilitator’s Empathy Toolkit.
Note that the toolkit is a 59 page pdf but is very comprehensive in content.
- pg3 – Background – outlines the context for the project and includes a reference list.
- pg11 – How to use this toolkit – overview of the way the researchers see the resource being used, followed by the actual questionnaires used in the research component of the project.
- pg16 – Bibliography – arranged by topic, and including empathy, emotional intelligence, attachment theory, face-to-face communication, interprofessional collaboration, rapport, medical malpractice and patient safety, and active listening.
- pg24 – Workshop Resources and Plan – an outline to guide running an empathy workshop, with resources.
- pg45 – Additional activities – some ideas for ways to extend the workshop experience.
Student gains:
See the ‘Publications’ resulting from this project. They give a good sense of the outcomes of the project