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Open research questions in Empathy and Medical Education

336 gap statements mined from Empathy and Medical Education papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 3,269 papers on the topic — drawn mostly from each paper's own stated research gap, future-work, challenge and limitation notes, and its abstract. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one.

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What the literature leaves open

  • Future research may examine how the consensus framework operates across cultural or institutional contexts and how it evolves in response to changes in health care systems and professional expectations.

    Developing a Shared Understanding of Humanism in Health Care Through Critical Review and Empirical Exploration: Protocol for a Modified e-Delphi Study · 2026 · DOI

  • A major limitation is the corpus of interviews being analyzed as it is a limited set that comes from ICUs and general medical/surgical units, with the majority of them collected during the COVID-19 visitor restrictions and the remaining during the following years as medical institutions revised common hospitalization practices because of the experiences learned from the pandemic.

    This Is My Story (TIMS), a Five-Year Thematic Analysis of Patient Narratives from a Novel Intervention in an Academic Hospital · 2026 · DOI

  • Moreover, medical students’ ethical development and its evolution as they enter clinical practice remain underexplored (48).

    From “Customary Morality” to “Reflective Morality”: a physician's personalized competence development facilitated by narrative medicine · 2026 · DOI

  • Future studies should consider randomized class-level allocation where feasible, multicenter designs, longer follow-up periods, more objective performance assessments, and qualitative data collection from both Intervention and Control Groups. Finally, the study did not include long-term follow-up, and it remains unclear whether the observed between-group differences would persist during later clinical practice.

    Effects of a Reflection-Integrated CICARE Program on Empathy and Clinical Judgment in Nursing Students: A Quasi-Experimental Study · 2026 · DOI

  • In summary, this study highlights the need for further investigation of dehumanization and its effects on healthcare, aiming to develop measures that will enhance the support and training of professionals, thereby improving the quality of care and the well-being of both patients and providers.

    Measurement of Dehumanization, Self-Dehumanization, and Empathy as Mediating Factors Among Healthcare Professionals · 2025 · DOI

  • Introduction Nursing students, as a vital reserve force for the nursing team, often encounter patient pain in clinical practice, and their empathy for this pain holds significant importance for fostering prosocial behavior and delivering high-quality care; however, the quantitative relationships among empathy for pain, meaning in life, and prosocial behavior remain unclear.

    Mediating Effect of Meaning in Life in the Relationship Between Empathy for Pain and Prosocial Behavior Among Nursing Students: A Multi-Center Cross-Sectional Study · 2025 · DOI

  • Empathy is stressed as an important component of patient-centered practice and training within the dental profession, yet assessment of both cognitive and affective empathy among dental students in a US dental school model is sparse.

    Evaluation of Dental Student Empathy Scores Using Cognitive and Effective Empathy Measures · 2025 · DOI

  • Future studies could investigate the long-term effects of experiential music therapy on medical students' humanistic qualities. Further research could explore the use of experiential music therapy in other healthcare professions. The study suggests that future research should prioritize the development of humanistic values in medical education.

    Experiential music therapy in cultivating medial humanistic qualities for medical education: a qualitative analysis based on experiential learning theory · 2026 · DOI

  • There is a need to cultivate medial humanistic qualities in medical students. The current medical education paradigm may not be sufficient to develop the humanistic skills required for patient-centered care.

    Experiential music therapy in cultivating medial humanistic qualities for medical education: a qualitative analysis based on experiential learning theory · 2026 · DOI

  • There is a need to investigate the current status and influencing factors of humanistic care competency among prenatal ultrasound physicians. Prior studies have not fully explored the factors associated with humanistic care competency.

    Humanistic care competency among standardized residency training physicians and refresher doctor in prenatal ultrasound: current status and influencing factors · 2026 · DOI

  • It remains to be seen to what extent these identified components will be important within more specific situations. Also worth mentioning are prospective findings from the subsidiary measures that were listed in Section 3 but have not been analysed yet.

    Practical Wisdom Through Narratives as Told by Medical Students and Physicians. · 2026 · DOI

  • There is a growing concern about reduced attention to emotions and narrative comprehension in medical practice. There is a need to understand factors related to patient-centered care and the development of clinical judgement.

    When stories become care: mapping literary exposure to empathy and resilience in medical students and doctors through the lens of narrative medicine · 2026 · DOI

  • Traditional teaching methods may not be effective in teaching health inequality. There is a need for a more engaging and dynamic approach to teaching community care navigation.

    Designing for impact: a game-based approach to teaching health inequality in community care · 2026 · DOI

  • There is a lack of meta-analyses summarizing the effect of narrative medicine education on academic performance and humanistic communication. The existing literature lacks high-quality evidence to inform medical education policymakers and practitioners.

    The effect of narrative medicine-based education on academic performance and humanistic communication in residency training: a systematic review and meta-analysis · 2026 · DOI

  • Few standardized frameworks exist to teach and assess narrative competence. Program evaluation in the existing literature varies widely, with few validated measures and inconsistent reporting.

    Narrative Quotient: A Core Competency for Person-Centered Care · 2026 · DOI

  • The study identifies challenges related to AI adoption, including limited digital literacy and inadequate infrastructure. The study highlights the need for institutions to address the digital divide among faculty. The study's results can inform the integration of AI into medical education and clinical practice.

    ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN MEDICAL EDUCATION AND CLINICAL PRACTICE: A SINGLE-CENTER CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY OF LECTURERS' EXPERIENCES AND PERCEPTIONS · 2026 · DOI

  • The study highlights the need for further research on the impact of AI on medical education and clinical practice.

    ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN MEDICAL EDUCATION AND CLINICAL PRACTICE: A SINGLE-CENTER CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY OF LECTURERS' EXPERIENCES AND PERCEPTIONS · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper suggests that future research should focus on the development of anti-racist praxis in medical education. The authors highlight the need for more research on the relationships between medical sociology, medicine, and sociology.

    Decolonising medicine: what role will sociology and sociologists play? · 2026 · DOI

  • The authors highlight the need for more research on the history and contemporary practice of medical sociology.

    Decolonising medicine: what role will sociology and sociologists play? · 2026 · DOI

  • Although no standardized cut-off scores have been established for the JSE-HPS, the overall empathy level among Lithuanian dental students appears comparatively high.

    Does Clinical Training Influence Empathy in Dental Students? Evidence from a Cross-Sectional Study in Lithuania · 2026 · DOI

  • The effect of the research on stakeholders, which is rarely reported, was qualitatively assessed, and we established the validity, trustworthiness and value of the poetry-creating process and its resulting output; this was essential to do prior to surveying healthcare professionals.

    ‘Misdiagnosed and Misunderstood’: Insights into Rarer Forms of Dementia through a Stepwise Approach to Co-Constructed Research Poetry · 2024 · DOI

  • Currently, no guidelines exist for integrating empathy training into medical schools or residency programs.

    Empathy Training Seminar in the Military Health System: A Qualitative Self-Assessment Pilot Study · 2025 · DOI

  • Conceptualizing the next patient interaction is logical, essential, and largely done intuitively with limited literature.

    Conceptualizing patient interactions eliciting empathy, compassion, reflection, and social projection: A model with analysis · 2024 · DOI

  • Limited resources in developing countries. Cultural diversity and historical trauma in South Africa. Conventional biomedical models may not be effective in addressing emotional needs.

    Healing beyond the physical: Ethical approaches to emotional support in post-stroke recovery · 2026 · DOI

  • Considering the literature and the fact that, to our knowledge, the relationship in Romania between personality, empathy, and attitudes related to communication with patients has not been investigated, the purpose of the current study was to investigate whether medical students’ attitudes towards learning communication skills are influenced by higher levels of empathy and personality traits from the big five…

    Personality Traits and Empathy in Relation to Attitudes About Communication Between Medical Students and Patients · 2025 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Empathy and Medical Education

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Open questions raised by papers listed on this page include: (1) Future research may examine how the consensus framework operates across cultural or institutional contexts and how it evolves in response to changes in health care systems and professional expectations (“Developing a Shared Understanding of Humanism in Health Care Through Critical…”, 2026); (2) The study did not include long-term follow-up, and it remains unclear whether the observed between-group differences would persist during later clinical practice (“Effects of a Reflection-Integrated CICARE Program on Empathy and Clinical…”, 2026); (3) Future studies could investigate the long-term effects of experiential music therapy on medical students' humanistic qualities (“Experiential music therapy in cultivating medial humanistic qualities for…”, 2026); (4) There is a need to investigate the current status and influencing factors of humanistic care competency among prenatal ultrasound physicians (“Humanistic care competency among standardized residency training physicians and…”, 2026); (5) It remains to be seen to what extent these identified components will be important within more specific situations (“Practical Wisdom Through Narratives as Told by Medical Students and Physicians”, 2026). 336 gap statements have been mined from Empathy and Medical Education papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 3,269 papers on the topic; the gaps come from whichever of those papers state one. They are mostly the research gaps the authors state and the papers' abstracts, plus future-work, limitations and challenges passages. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one, so you can read the original claim in context.

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