Paper II
2025 March (Supplementary (SAY)) (2019 Scheme) · 100 marks · 180 min

Question

Discuss the role of empathy in patient care.

Q154 marksShort Answers

Answer

Empathy — the ability to understand and share a patient’s feelings and perspective — plays a central role in patient care beyond the purely technical/pharmacological aspects of treatment.

Building trust and rapport: a patient who feels genuinely understood is more willing to disclose sensitive history accurately, improving diagnostic accuracy and the quality of shared decision-making.

Improving adherence: patients who feel their concerns and circumstances are acknowledged are more likely to follow through on prescribed treatment, since barriers to adherence (cost, side-effect concerns, competing life priorities) are more likely to surface and be addressed collaboratively.

Reducing patient anxiety and improving outcomes: empathic communication, particularly around difficult diagnoses or prognoses, reduces patient distress and has been associated with measurably better clinical outcomes in several studies, independent of the specific treatment given.

Supporting informed consent and autonomy: genuinely understanding a patient’s values and concerns allows a clinician to present treatment options in a way the patient can meaningfully engage with, rather than a one-directional recitation of facts.

Reducing burnout and improving the therapeutic relationship: empathy is not only beneficial to the patient — it sustains a more meaningful, less transactional clinician-patient relationship, which is itself protective against clinician burnout over a career.

Empathy is a learnable clinical skill, not merely an innate personality trait, and is increasingly recognized as a core competency alongside diagnostic and therapeutic knowledge in modern medical training.

Other Years Asked


Revise MBBS
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