Fostering empathy

Health care disparities pose a significant challenge in modern medical practice, including urban settings where social determinants of health have context-specific effects on access to care. At the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong (HKUMed), a critical issue identified was the lack of understanding and empathy among medical students regarding the experiences of vulnerable populations. Traditional medical education often emphasises clinical knowledge and skills, neglecting the social contexts in which patients live. Consequently, future health care practitioners may lack the insights necessary for compassionate care, leading to poor patient outcomes and distrust in patient-provider relationships.1 Recognising this gap, the HealthSeekers Project is a game-based simulation developed through student–educator partnership and supported by the university's Teaching Development Grant. The project was co-created by two educators, one research assistant and 17 student co-designers from second to final year medical, nursing and global health and development programmes. At its core is a board game developed to simulate challenges faced by underprivileged groups, such as ethnic minorities and low-income families. Participants assume roles to navigate context-specific scenarios based on real-life barriers of patients in Hong Kong when seeking health care. These obstacles include transportation issues, financial constraints or discrimination, forcing participants to make decisions that may impact their character's health and well-being. The content is based on secondary research, interviews with community members and iterative plays with community partners for continuous improvements. The board game, paired with an introduction to health care inequality themes and debriefings, became a workshop that was integrated into the medical humanities curriculum, reaching 32 second-year medical students. During gameplay, participants engaged in decision-making and reflection based on the real-life scenarios. This was followed by a debriefing where students reflect on the complexities of the experience, confront their own biases and engage in discussion with community members who shared their stories. With modifications, the workshop also reached over 40 exchange medical students from other universities and 120 secondary school students as an extracurricular activity. Several lessons emerged from the HealthSeekers Project. First, the effectiveness of experiential learning was evident. Feedback indicated significant improvements in empathy and understanding after engaging with the board game and participating in outreach. Pre- and post-intervention assessments showed a 30% increase in self-reported empathy scores, highlighting the positive impact of interactive simulation learning integrated with real-world context. The strength of the project is built upon the interactions between students and community members through interviews for game content curation and organised game sessions together which fuelled discussions. The engagement of student co-designers from various health care disciplines also created a rich learning environment that allows for diverse perspectives. These collaborations enhanced the authenticity of the game and deepened students' understanding of health care disparities. Each game play also served as an evaluation stage for stakeholders such as health professional learners and community members to provide feedback which informs continuous improvements. Through this project, we aim to create a lasting impact in fostering empathy in the next generation of health care professionals. Po Ling Pauline Luk: Conceptualization; data curation; funding acquisition; methodology; investigation; project administration; supervision; resources; writing—original draft; writing—review and editing. Michelle Che Yan Lam: Conceptualization; data curation; formal analysis; writing—original draft; writing—review and editing. Yat Chun Lim: Conceptualization; formal analysis; writing—original draft; writing—review and editing. Mei Li Khong: Conceptualization; investigation; project administration; resources; supervision; writing—original draft; writing—review and editing. There is no conflict of interest. This project was approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) at the University of Hong Kong. The HREC's reference number is EA230415. Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study

Empathy · Health care · Health equity · Medical education · Political science · Public health · Cultural Competency in Health Care · Empathy and Medical Education · Innovations in Medical Education · Medicine · Nursing · Psychology · Social Psychology