Measurement of the physician empathy and the variation of the this measurement in relation to demographic variables

Empathy is the capacity to recognize or understand another's state of mind oremotion. It is often characterized as the ability to "put oneself into another's shoes", orto in some way experience the outlook or emotions of another being within oneself. Theimportance of empathy is more apparent in professions like medicine. In this study, it isaimed to determine the empathy levels of physicians and to investigate whether thesevary by demographic factors. As a result, it is demonstrated that the empathy level ofphysicians is determined by two factors named “posit” and “emotional approach”.Furthermore, it is suggested that the empathy level differs by gender, years of practice,position, age and department variables.