Review and synthesis of selected nursing studies on teaching empathy and implications for nursing research and education.

The mandate by caring theorists to integrate caring into nursing curricula could be accomplished without major curricula change. The integration of empathy training, with special emphasis on expanding one's awareness of self as well as others, espouses a pedagogical approach to caring. The continuing effort of nurse researchers and educators to clarify how to best teach empathy and to integrate heuristic methods into nursing education and practice settings is imperative to the essence of nursing--caring.