book review: The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison
The basics: The Empathy Exams is an essay collection. Each essay, including the titular one, addresses empathy, although some focus more on it than others. My thoughts: I've really been enjoying essays lately, and The Empathy Exams is the most buzzed about collection this year. Having read several edited collections, it was delightful to dig more deeply into a thematic collection of essays by a single author. The first (and titular) essay is astonishingly good. It details Jamison's time working as a medical actor, where her job was to act out symptoms for medical students, who were then judged not only on their diagnostic skills, but also their empathy, both verbally and visually. The essay is simultaneously a fascinating glimpse into an experience and a deep meditation on health, wellness, humanity, and empathy. As I read this collection, which I didn't expect to be about empathy after the first essay, I realized how much I'm drawn to essays about personal e...