Sanford Institute Spreads Compassion Nationwide with New Training Program

Seminal Mindfulness Study, Led By Sanford Institute Endowed Professor, Makes Headlines

As reported by UC San Diego Today: A new study, published in Biological Psychiatry, has revealed that mindfulness meditation engages distinct brain mechanisms to reduce pain compared to those of the placebo response. The study, conducted by researchers at UC San Diego School of Medicine, including Sanford Institute Endowed Professor Fadel Zeidan, PhD, used advanced brain imaging techniques to compare the pain-reducing effects of mindfulness meditation, a placebo cream and a “sham” mindfulness meditation in healthy participants. The study found that mindfulness meditation produced significant reductions in pain intensity and pain unpleasantness ratings, and also reduced brain activity patterns associated with pain and negative emotions. In contrast, the placebo cream only reduced the brain activity pattern associated with the placebo effect, without affecting the person’s underlying experience of pain.

Lead With Compassion: Communication Skill-Building Workshop, Jan. 6 - 9, 2025

Healthcare requires a different kind of leader – one that strives to create a supportive environment for their patients, colleagues, and broader healthcare team; one that promotes a culture of collaboration and wellbeing; and one that is empathic and compassionate. The Lead With Compassion: Communication Skill-Building Workshop is a 2.5-day training in San Diego, CA, led by the Center for Compassionate Communication, that equips experienced and aspiring healthcare professionals with the tools to enhance their leadership performance in medical settings. Lead With Compassion teaches you how to better connect with patients, peers, students, and more through an immersive arts and humanities-based curriculum. As a result of completing this workshop, participants will walk away feeling confident in their abilities to more effectively lead their healthcare teams. But don’t just take our word for it – hear from testimonials of transformation from past participants.

Free Resources: Compassionate Communication Online Courses and Facilitation Guides

The Center for Compassionate Communication is currently offering free online courses via Coursera that teach health caregivers and medical educators how to improve communication skills using empathy and compassion principles. These engaging, highly-rated courses reach beyond typical e-Learning by incorporating real stories of providers and patients, interactive knowledge checks, practice exercises, and more. Are you a medical educator? Here's a pro tip!: While this story-based content is impactful for the individual, we imagine the optimal use of these courses is a hybrid model in which each module is assigned as pre-work, with suggested in-class practice of principles and skills. Feel free to use the Center's free facilitation guides. The online courses are also available on Canvas; if you’d like to have your own private Canvas section for your learners, email ProgramExpansion@health.ucsd.edu and our team will set one up for you! 

Qualcomm Institute Interviews Center for Empathy and Technology Director, Cinnamon Bloss, PhD

Researcher, teacher, and expert advisor, Center for Empathy and Technology Director Cinnamon Bloss, PhD, works across disciplines to understand and shape the impact of technology on health and society. Dr. Bloss recently sat down with the Qualcomm Institute to discuss her unconventional journey, multifaceted work, and gusto for studying new technologies in an ever-changing healthcare landscape. As she states in the article, titled Bridging the Gaps, "At a high level, I am a clinical psychologist by training. So I certainly describe my work as having a health-related focus, but I tend to think about health pretty broadly. I don’t think only about specific diseases or disorders, but also about how new technologies can promote or undermine health or mental health." This unique perspective is critical to her work at the Sanford Institute.