Student empathy in standardized patient experiences: Applying concepts from a critical thinking emulation model
Lead Author: Lance Brendan Young PhD, MBA
Submitted by: Amy Lorion, NBOME

According to Young et al., research has shown that dental students’ empathy for patients declines over the course of their education and this “empathy-reducing influence of training” can have a real and negative impact on the students’ future patients. In order to address this concern, the authors aspired to “(1) Develop a learning guide for observable behaviors communicating emotional and cognitive empathy and (2) determine whether the learning guide can be used as a rubric for assessing empathy in a standardized patient experience.” The authors created a learning guide/evaluation rubric using an emulation model that focused on, “the communication of empathy,” a guide that SPs then used to score student performance in simulated encounters. According to the authors, the study’s results show that their model, “is viable as both a learning guide and evaluation rubric in a standardized patient format.”

Read the full article in the Journal of Dental Education here.

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