Twelve tips for teaching empathy using simulated patients.

Empathy is a key component of humane, patient-centered consulting. Physician empathy increases patient satisfaction and enablement; it may even lead to better health outcomes. Despite this, empathy in clinical encounters is often lacking and empathy in medical students decreases as they progress from the early to the senior undergraduate years. The components of empathy - like attentive listening and a mastery of non-verbal communication - are standard fare for communication training and universities and clinical postgraduate programs frequently employ simulated/standardized patients (SPs) to facilitate this training. In the field of empathy, SPs bring added value to feedback given that many are professional actors, well versed in the skills of putting themselves "in another character's shoes." Drawing from the existing evidence base and their personal training and role-play experience, the authors provide 12 practical tips for teaching empathy with simulated patients.