Empathy expert addresses global audience
Empathy expert Professor Jeremy Howick is among the speakers addressing fellow academics on global health challenges in Dubai this week.
‘Prototypes for Humanity’, is an annual event that showcases innovative projects from University leaders designed to look at issues including health, sustainability, and social impact.
The event aims to connect students and academics with industry, government, and investors to help bring their science-backed, real-world solutions to a larger audience.
Professor Howick, Director of the Stoneygate Centre for Empathic Healthcare and co-founder of the Global Empathy in Healthcare Network, will lead a discussion on the use of AI to assist with human empathy in healthcare.
He will state that healthcare faces a “twin crisis” – first that communication failures lead to one in 10 patient safety incidents globally, and second, that artificial intelligence and virtual reality technologies are rapidly replacing human interaction in clinical settings.
This, he states:
“Threatens to erode the empathic connections essential to healing.”
However, Professor Howick will argue that AI can augment rather than replace human empathy, which he says is “essential to patient relationships and medical compliance.”
Drawing on research from the Global Network for Empathy in Healthcare spanning eight countries, he proposes that a “Cultural AI Empathy Assistant” can improve empathy and help clinicians recognise culturally specific expressions of distress often missed in traditional encounters.
Professor Howick said: “If used wisely, AI-assisted communication interventions will reduce cross-cultural misunderstandings, addressing a significant source of preventable patient harm whilst strengthening human empathic responses. We can ensure that the AI Empathy Assistant is benevolent by tracking harms within our database.
“This human-centred framework will ensure AI enhances rather than substitutes authentic human connection.”
Furthermore, he says that: “Our research on AI-augmented empathy training can produce “ultra-empathic” practitioners whose empathy and cultural sensitivity surpasses both unaugmented human practitioners and AI systems alone.
“Our vision for empathy-centred AI design charts a path forward that harnesses technological capabilities whilst strengthening the human connections that define compassionate care, demonstrating how healthcare can embrace innovation without sacrificing the empathic relationships essential to healing across cultural boundaries.”
If you want to learn more about teaching empathy, the Stoneygate Centre for Empathic Healthcare is running its flagship course, Educating for Empathy in Healthcare, from April 20 to April 22, 2026. To find out more about the course, visit https://le.ac.uk/empathy/study/educating-empathy
Professor Jeremy Howick