Empathy-Based Healthcare Education: How to teach empathy

Empathy is fundamental to high-quality, person-centred healthcare, yet research shows that it often declines as medical students progress through their training. This handbook presents a comprehensive, evidence-based approach to reversing the decline in medical student empathy, developed by the Stoneygate Centre for Empathic Healthcare at Leicester Medical School. Grounded in six core principles, the empathy-focused curriculum integrates longitudinal communication skills training, patient involvement, wellbeing education, and support during the transition into the clinical phase of training, amongst other innovative interventions, to create an “empathic hidden curriculum”. Using a structured six-step curriculum development framework, interventions are co-produced with patients, students, and educators to ensure relevance and sustainability. Each chapter outlines the development, implementation, and, where relevant, evaluation of evidence-based, empathy-enhancing interventions. Designed to be adaptable across contexts, this handbook serves as both a guide and a call to action for institutions seeking to embed empathy at the heart of medical education.HOW TO CITE THE HANDBOOKHowick J, Bennett-Weston A, editors. Empathy-Based Healthcare Education: How to teach empathy. Beta version. Leicester: Leicester Medical School; 2025. doi:10.25392/leicester.data.29301791.