Empathy in clinical performance examinations: Medical students’ use of empathic statements in interaction with standardized patients

Abstract

This paper examines interactional functions of empathic statements in clinical performance examinations by using the method of conversation analysis. In video-recordings of 170 consultations between medical students and standardized patients (individuals trained to play the role of the patient), medical students produce empathic utterances in three sequential positions and accomplish different interactional jobs. First, medial students produce empathic statements before the initiation of history taking. They check whether patients have concerns in addition to those in problem presentation. Second, medical students construct empathic statements during history taking. They treat a particular symptom as problematic, in alignment with patients’ display of a problem. Finally, medical students produce empathic statements before the delivery of diagnosis. They portray the upcoming diagnosis as made in recognition of the troublesome nature of patients’ problems. This suggests that functions of empathic statements can vary according to the specific demands of interaction in different sequential contexts.