Speaker Series (Summer 2026) - Drs. Rachna Subramony, Sandeep Segar, & Gerald Tolbert

UC San Diego’s Center for Research on Empathy and Compassion proudly presents the Empathy & Compassion Research Speaker Series for Summer 2026. This free virtual series highlights the impactful and groundbreaking research that Sanford Institute-affiliated faculty and researchers have played an integral role in. This series is designed for anyone with an interest in empathy and compassion in neurobiology and healthcare. The hosting organization, T. Denny Sanford Institute of Empathy and Compassion, represents an unprecedented blending of two parallel themes: employing the unyielding rigor and tools of science to establish the neurological basis for empathy in the brain to identify the mechanisms that transform compassion from biology to behavior, and experimenting with and developing new ways to teach and instill empathy and compassion in clinicians currently practicing and in the teaching of future generations of health professionals. Cultivating Compassionate Communication Between Emergency Medicine and Hospital Medicine Physicians Through Perspective-Taking and Role Reversal 🧍 Rachna Subramony, MD 🏢 University of California, San Diego, Emergency Medicine 📅 Thursday, September 17, from 12p.m. - 1 p.m. (PST) This project explored communication and collaboration between Emergency Medicine (EM) and Hospital Medicine (HM) physicians during the hospital admission process. We developed and implemented a 3-hour role-reversal workshop in which EM and HM physicians participated in realistic admission scenarios and then switched roles to experience the challenges and perspectives of the other specialty. The intervention incorporated perspective-taking and communication strategies, including the Ladder of Inference and “Yes, and…” techniques, to promote empathy, reduce assumptions, and strengthen interprofessional communication. Participants completed surveys before and after the workshop, with follow-up assessment to evaluate changes in perceptions, communication, stress, and burnout. The project demonstrated the potential for structured perspective-taking and role reversal to foster greater understanding between specialties and create more collaborative, compassionate approaches to a high-friction point in patient care.