Effective, person centred, healthcare requires integration and attention to both the science and the art of healthcare practice.
The ‘art’ of practice hasn’t always been prioritised in health professions education historically.
This example explores expanding empathy in the education of dietitians, so they might better meet the needs of their diverse clients.
Dietitians are health professionals who require highly developed and excellent communication and humanistic skills to be able to both connect with people, and to be effective in influencing sustainable dietary and lifestyle changes.
Supporting someone to change their eating habits and the foods they choose, is a deeply personal and complex aspect to explore and is influenced by many factors - cultural, financial, social, generational and individual beliefs about food.
Being able to empathise, build trust, and emotionally connect with someone is powerful in enabling dietary change.
Interestingly however, purposefully developing empathy has not typically been a topic that has been explicitly taught or included in the formal curricula of university dietetics programmes. Instead, it has been part of the hidden curriculum and assumed that it may develop passively “on the job”.
I have a background of working as a dietitian for many years but came into higher education with a desire to influence and impact education within my profession, and improve the “art” of how dietitians practice and graduating dietitians who are both compassionate and effective.
Empathy is a core component of humanistic healthcare and I decided it would be a good topic to focus on in expanding the art of dietetic practice.
My interest in empathy began about 6 years ago. At this time, literature was coming out that supported that empathy was a skill that could be taught, rather than relying on its development through experience. At the same time, I expanded my own scholarship around empathy - beyond my practitioner experience and considering it from the perspective as an educator. I wanted to include explicit teaching around expanding empathy for dietetic practice in our dietetics program..
Intuitively, I felt it would not only benefit the students and their developing practice but the patients they were interacting with and patient outcomes. I liaised with colleagues in our program who were supportive of the concept and developed a 2.5 hour workshop, anchored in theory and evidence, and drawing on narratives from practice.
Evaluations of this session have revealed powerful impacts for students including learning the importance of not judging others, the value of expanding empathy, creating deeper connections (with each other as peers and their patients) and to not be afraid of acknowledging emotions in practice. After 16 years of teaching higher education, it remains the most powerful teaching session I’ve been involved in - in terms of the depths of discussion, the insights and the learning the session fosters.
Evidence of the enduring impact of this session was an invitation I received last year from a practising dietitian who graduated 5 years ago, inviting me to speak on empathy to her team in her health service.
Some of the student feedback on the impact of the session have included:
"I learnt that it is never appropriate to make assumptions about someone as you never know what they have been through"
"I learnt more about myself as a person during this session and started to think about who I am as a friend, colleague, future dietitian, family member and so on. Empathy is so much more than a skill."
“Initially challenging to be open and think or talk about sensitive topics. However very, very, useful and once ‘open’ didn’t find it challenging.”
"I learned to make deeper connections with people, and to not be afraid of acknowledging emotions in practice."
This exemplar requires a medium level of effort to implement.
Recommended resources and training:
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