Empathy Detectives

The Empathy Detectives project is a collaboration between CURAM, Research Centre for Medical Devices, The Ideas Lab (University of Galway), PPI Ignite Network (University of Galway) and patient representative Cameron Keighron, a member of the D1 Now Young Adult Panel, which aims to improve engagement between young adults with Type 1 Diabetes and their healthcare providers. The project will convene a patient panel to work alongside the project team to create ’empathy kits’; a series of short experiences that create empathy and understanding about the lived experience of diabetes for public audiences, with a particular focus on junior cycle students and families.These kits will be made available at Galway City Museum, through CÚRAM’s new public exhibit ‘SUPERHUMAN’ which is housed there. The kit will be co-created, tested and evaluated with a view to establishing a model for creation of further empathy kits representing chronic conditions targeted by current research at CURAM. The project will also deliver a series of design workshops that will incorporate the empathy kit experience and facilitate participants to use design thinking exercises to generate creative ideas and solutions for chronic illnesses. Workshop audiences will include teachers, students, researchers, patient groups and families. Key to the success of the project will be the involvement of patients, researchers and clinicians in the design of the empathy experience. The end goal of the project is to create meaningful educational resources that encourage and develop empathy alongside innovation, and that relate directly to the junior cycle science curriculum.