"I Believe in You": Student Experiences of Faculty Empathy in Health Sciences Education

Faculty empathy, defined as perceptions of the students about the capacity of academic teaching staff's to recognize, understand, and respond sensitively to students' academic and emotional needs within non-clinical educational settings, remains underexplored in health sciences education. While empathy has been widely examined in clinical training, far less is known about how empathic behaviors enacted by faculty in classroom contexts shape students' motivation, engagement, and academic identity. Thus, this study aimed to explore undergraduate health sciences students' perceptions of faculty empathy, identify its impact on their academic engagement and well-being, and examine specific behaviors students perceived as empathetic or non-empathetic.

A qualitative descriptive study was conducted with 16 undergraduate students (N = 16) from four academic programs at the University of Hail, Saudi Arabia. Participants submitted reflective essays describing personal experiences with faculty empathy or its absence. Data were analyzed using Braun and Clarke's six-phase thematic analysis framework, following manual coding and pre-established trustworthiness strategies, including peer debriefing and audit trails.

Sixteen undergraduate health sciences students, representing four academic programs and diverse academic stages from first year to internship, contributed reflective essays. Analysis revealed four interrelated themes: (1) Empathy as a Catalyst for Academic Motivation, (2) The Emotional Consequences of Empathic Failure, (3) Faculty as Role Models and Academic Anchors, and (4) The Transformative Power of Supportive Communication. Students described both the empowering impact of empathetic faculty and the emotional harm caused by neglectful behaviors. Empathy fostered motivation, belonging, and self-efficacy, while its absence led to distress and disengagement.

The findings demonstrate that faculty empathy expressed through encouragement, recognition, and respectful engagement plays a decisive role in shaping students' academic experiences in non-clinical settings. Conversely, empathic failure may contribute to disengagement and emotional distress. These results underscore the need to intentionally integrate empathic practices into faculty development and institutional teaching cultures.