DEVELOPMENT OF EMPATHIC ABILITIES IN MEDICAL STUDENTS

Abstract

The aim of the work – to study the problem of empathy among medical students, cognitive and emotional direction of empathy.

The main body. The study of empathy issues in psychology is of rather long history. The empathy is defined as the human ability to respond emotionally to the worries of another person, animal or any anthropomorphized subject; as an exceptionally emotional phenomenon representing the process of mutual worries – sympathy – internal perception; as realization of emotional state of another person, penetration into the worries of another man; as an ability to touch to emotional life of another person sharing his/her worries; as “transformation” into the position of another man, ability to fell in his/her position; as a sensation reproducing moral unity. In order to study possible relations between empathy and experiencing fault and shame, the empirical research was conducted involving 37 fourth-year students from Bukovyna State Medical University applying the methods of V. V. Boiko to diagnose empathy and J. Tangney to assess feelings of fault and shame.

Conclusion. The necessity to investigate the level of empathy abilities of medical students and their continuous development is stipulated by the time as an important constituent of high professional and humane qualities of a modern doctor.