What promotes and what inhibits empathy in medical education and physicians' everyday practice?

Fostering the development of empathy in students and physicians is a reasonable objective of medical education. This thesis explores the views of 42 practicing physicians and 115 medical students in Germany on the factors they perceived as promoting or inhibiting their own empathy. Respondents mentioned elements of the formal curriculum, personal factors, and their learning and working environments. The resulting data suggest possibilities for promoting empathy development in medical education.