Medical residents lose their empathy for patients over time according to an article in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. However, they can regain some of this by taking a short course in empathy that rescusitates this feeling that they had when they went into medicine. Part of this is because of the "scientific" emphasis of their training and some because their teachers don't teach it very well. The neurobiological basis for empathy was taught via specialized brain imaging as well as from patient feedback.
