Learning Objectives

  1. Explore key concepts and statistics related to empathy, stigma, discrimination, and distancing in modern care environments.
  2. Build awareness of the affective neuroscience underlying human connection, disconnection, and trust.
  3. Understand and explore common experiences of patients and providers within healthcare systems.
  4. List and describe evidence-based nursing interventions to enhance trust, safety and presence during care activities.
  5. Integrate knowledge of personal attributes and attitudes to build new understandings of how to best establish empathy and rapport.
  6. Demonstrate a basic awareness of how to apply therapeutic communication strategies to build empathy and rapport, promote information sharing and improve patient outcomes.
  7. Increase confidence to adapt communication approaches to fit specific clinical contexts, including: grief, loss and transitions of care, palliative and end-of-life care, language and communication barriers, and neurocognitive and mental health conditions.