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Nurturing empathy and compassion: what might the neurosciences have to offer?

The assumption that the valuing of compassion and empathy by physicians is important in patient care has been part of medical education for many years. Recent empirical evidence suggests that physician empathy is therapeutic in itself. However, medical education is still searching for fitfor-purpose curricula that adequately nurture empathy and compassion in students. Such curricula should ensure that medical students graduate with adequate knowledge and, above all, practise medicine according to those values. There are multiple challenges facing the development of such curricula. Empathy and compassion are multidimensional constructs, have complex and sometimes contradictory definitions, and are very sensitive to contextual influences in practice (including those of the deleterious ‘hidden curriculum’). Both constructs are also conditioned by physician well-being, which makes the fostering of well-being and learning to self-care important objectives of an empathy and compassion curriculum.