Remediating Undergraduate Medical Learners with Deficits in Empathy

Abstract Remediation of academic difficulties and professional misconduct in undergraduate medical trainees has been described and studied extensively in recent years. We have no formal research however on the processes involved in the remediation of empathy deficits in these learners. This study aims to broaden our understanding of remediating empathy in undergraduate medical students with two main objectives : 1) Generate an understanding of remediation approaches currently used by experienced medical educators when working with undergraduate medical students who have failed to demonstrate cognitive and behavioural empathy and 2) Describe the perceived efficacy of these strategies for remediating cognitive and behavioural empathy, from the perspective of the experienced medical educators who do this remediation work. Semi-structured interviews were conducted over the Zoom platform with 15 remediation experts. Responses were transcribed, analyzed, and coded to contribute to our knowledge of the procedures, processes, and outcomes of this work. We learned that while curriculum is in place to support and build empathy, the remediation of empathy deficits tends to occur informally, throughout the preclinical stage and clinical training in Medical School, via coaching and mentoring relationships. We elaborated a descriptive model to summarize our findings as a perilous sea journey, with opportunities at several phases for informal remediation of empathy. This research emphasizes the need for more explicit evaluation of, and training in, the knowledge, skills, and attitudes underpinning cognitive and behavioural empathy. It also begs the important question of why, when all agree that empathetic expert medical care is the stated goal of medical training, the focus of remedial work seems to fall almost exclusively on shortcomings in the medical expert role, to the exclusion of remediation of empathy.

Department dc:contributor.department

Health Science Education

Year dc:date.issued

2026

Author dc:creator

• Quinton, Cindy

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Vanstone, Dr. Meredith

• Empathy
• Remediation
• Undergraduate Medical Students

Statement dc:rights

• Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/11375/33093

OAI record oai:identifier

https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/server/oai/request?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=dim&identifier=oai%3Amacsphere.mcmaster.ca%3A11375%2F33093