Scott Miller attending the Global Empathy in Healthcare Conference 2025
Faculty: Scott Miller, Grad Acting
Supported by the Mega Grants Incubator 2024-2025
Scott Miller’s project focuses on innovating how doctors and nurses communicate with patients and, by extension, with each other.
From Miller’s research and preliminary interrogation of the field, the evidence exposes that communication, empathy and effective bedside manner sorely decline throughout medical education, training and practice, a gap that renders significant consequences. Currently, there is a systemic lack in training to promote sustained and generative growth in this area. The research uncovers a desire for improvement for four main reasons:
- Better communication internally between health care practitioners leads to fewer mistakes that can, at a minimum, cause system inefficiencies and maximally lead to catastrophic mistakes.
- Enhanced communication between health practitioners and patients lead to better health outcomes in patients as well as more accurate, nuanced investigations that often uncover the behavioral information doctors and nurses rely on to determine courses of action.
- Better doctor/nurse reviews lead to increased revenue for hospitals and practices.
- Wellness and satisfaction for practitioners as well as patients.
Miller brings expertise in the Miller Voice Technique, particularly in presence and clarity of information transportation, and has already provided training and webinars in this field. The research seeks to determine if there are measurable results in how doctors and nurses communicate with patients and the care-related data patients offer in response.
Additionally, the project investigates Standardized Patient practice. Nearly all U.S. medical schools now employ standardized patients—lay people coached to portray patients in realistic situations. The project interrogates current medical education models to determine if a formalized, somatic-based approach could discourage a much reported dilemma of students “gaming the empathy test,” and rather, in its place, enhance student preparation and buy-in.