Empathy-Based Ethics - A Way to Practice Humane Medicine

This book explores a new way of applying clinical ethics. Empathy-based ethics is based on the patient-doctor relationship and seeks to encourage a more humane form of medical practice. The author argues that the current emphasis on the biomedical model of medicine and a detached concern form of professionalism have damaged the patient-doctor relationship. He investigates examples of the dehumanization of patients and demonstrates a contrasting view of humane care. The book presents empathy as a relational construct - it provides an in-depth analysis of the process of empathizing. It discusses an empathy-based ethics approach underpinned by clinical examples of the practical application of this new approach. It suggests how empathy-based ethics can be embedded in clinical practice, medical education and research. The book concludes by examining the challenges in implementing such an approach and looks to a future which redresses the current imbalance between biomedical and psychosocial approaches to medicine.


David Ian Jeffrey is an Honorary Lecturer in Palliative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, UK. His former posts include Academic Mentor at the Medical School, Dundee University, Consultant in Palliative Medicine for the Three Counties Cancer Centre Cheltenham and General Practitioner in Evesham, UK. He is the author of Exploring Empathy with Medical Students (2019). He is a Winston Churchill Fellow.