Clinical Empathy

This updated book provides expanded evidence that empathy is the heart of the art of patient care. To achieve that goal, this volume assembles the most current research and development on empathy in the context of health professions education and patient care.

The original edition of the book: Empathy in Patient Care: Antecedents, Development, Measurement, and Outcomes was published by Springer in 2007. The second expanded and updated edition of the book was released in 2016 under a new title: Empathy in Health Professions Education and Patient Care.

The third edition of this book updates and expands the content of the previous editions by incorporating a large volume of empirical, qualitative and review articles published by national and international researchers, after the release of the previous editions. It also includes a new chapter describing a landmark nationwide project on clinical empathy in osteopathic medical students in the United States. This edition will help readers embark on a journey to the unchartered terrain of clinical empathy, beginning with its conceptualization and measurement. The journey will proceed to empirical research findings from the author’s own team as well as national and international researchers on correlates, group differences, erosion, enhancement, and educational and healthcare outcomes of empathic engagement in patient care. A great majority of these studies (Appendix A) used the well-known instrument for measuring clinical empathy, the Jefferson Scale of Empathy, developed by the book’s author.

Author Biography

Dr. Mohammadreza Hojat is Research Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, and Director of the Jefferson Longitudinal Study at the Asano-Gonnella Center for Research in Medical Education and Health Care, Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He is a licensed psychologist, received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, and his extensive research has pursued evidence to improve medical education and deepen understanding of clinical empathy. Other areas of his research interest include inter-professional collaboration, physician lifelong learning, psychosocial factors in academic and professional performance, and personality development and measurement.

Dr. Hojat has led the development of 10 psychometrically sound instruments for the assessment of medical education outcomes, patient satisfaction, and professional development. During 45 years of experience in educational and psychological research, he has published over 285 articles in peer-reviewed journals and 13 book chapters on educational, psychological, and social issues in general, and in medical education and patient care, in particular. He has served as a guest coeditor for thematic issues of the Journal of Social Behavior and Personality on loneliness (1987, Volume 2, No. 2, Part 2); Academic Medicine on assessment measures in medical school, residency, and practice (1993, Volume 68, No. 2, February Supplement); and section coeditor of the Evaluation & the Health Professions on medical education and changes in healthcare system (1999, Volume 22, No. 2, pp.149-220).

Dr. Hojat is a coauthor of the following books: “Loneliness: Theory, Research, and Applications” (Sage, 1989), and “Assessment Measures in Medical School, Residency, and Practice: The Connections” (Springer, 1993), a monograph on “Personality Assessments and Outcomes in Medical Education and the Practice of Medicine” (AMEE Guide 79, 2014); and “Fifty Years of Findings from the Jefferson Longitudinal Study of Medical Education” (Springer International, 2022).