Empathy in the clinical context

As a requirement for the first year nursing subject "Foundations of Nursing", we were given the opportunity to examine the complex dimensions of Nursing culture and Nursing care. To apply the learned theory to practice, the author undertook a three-day clinical placement in a major metropolitan hospital. Negative and positive experiences while on clinical placement led to the use of exemplars to describe these experiences. These exemplars have been graded according to the levels of empathy observed and experienced by the author. This paper describes the author's reflections of nursing practice using empathy as the specific focus. A significant amount of emotional catharsis was felt by the author on completion of this paper; it is hoped that other nurses and nursing students may learn from and reflect from their own experiences of empathy in the clinical context.