Empathy in Primary Care: Insights from an Experiential Disability Simulation
Zeynep Cansu KAÇAR, Özden GÖKDEMIR and Vildan MEVSIM
Primary care physicians frequently care for patients with physical and cognitive disabilities, yet the lived experience of disability often remains abstract in routine medical training. To address this gap, our Family Medicine residency program integrates experiential disability awareness training through visits to a Disability Awareness Center in XXX (city), XXX (country). The aim is to foster empathy, reduce bias, and promote patient-centered practice by enabling residents to temporarily experience disability from the patient perspective.Description of the experience; the structured program included five consecutive simulations. In the visual impairment module, residents navigated a completely dark room using a white cane, provoking disorientation and revealing reliance on accessible environmental design. The autism spectrum simulation recreated hypersensitivity to light and sound through a short film, inducing cognitive fatigue similar to neurodivergent sensory distress. A separate sensory overload exercise combined loud auditory stimuli with simple tasks, illustrating how concentration difficulties may manifest clinically as anxiety or noncompliance. The dyslexia simulation asked participants to read a deliberately distorted, disordered text, mirroring the decoding challenges faced by individuals with dyslexia. Finally, the mobility impairment exercise required using a manual wheelchair on 6% and 10% slopes, quickly leading to physical exhaustion and heightened awareness of everyday accessibility barriers.Unlike single-disability models, this multi-sensory, sequential approach offered a holistic, emotionally resonant experience and is uniquely embedded as a required component of Family Medicine training. Strengths included immersive multi-sensory design, stepwise exposure to diverse limitations, and structured debriefing sessions. While brief simulations cannot replicate lifelong disability, they provided meaningful insight. Qualitative reflections were collected and discussed during residency seminars.Participant family medicine residents reported greater appreciation for environmental and sensory barriers, improved empathy, and increased attention to accessibility in clinical encounters. Incorporating patient narratives and longitudinal follow-up may further reinforce behavioral change.Experiential methods complement traditional didactics by challenging assumptions and deepening residents’ understanding of patient realities, potentially influencing communication and shared decision-making practices.Disability awareness simulations can enrich residency education by cultivating more empathetic, inclusive, and equitable primary care practice.
