How medical students experience empathy training? An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Results from the “Empathize with me, doctor!” project

The aim of this study was to investigate how a detailed experiential empathy training program was experienced by medical undergraduates. Twelve medical undergraduates completed a 60-hour, experiential, person-centered training, aiming at improving their empathic performance. After the completion of the training they were interviewed, using semi-structured interviews with open questions, while Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to extract the emerged themes. IPA revealed one superordinate theme, i.e. the training as opportunity for actualization, and two subordinate themes, i.e. change in relating with others and self-concept reconstruction through introspection. The first subordinate theme had two components: change in relating with others regarding professional relationships and change related to personal relationships. IPA of students’ transcripts revealed that the training was experienced by the students, as an opportunity to introspect, to deal with the obstacles occurring in their encounters with their patients, as a chance to eavesdrop to their inner needs and as a chance to actualize their potential.