Professor Jodi Halpern introduces the audience to empathic curiosity, a concept that she has developed through her work in psychiatry, paediatrics and clinical ethics. Prof Halpern explains how sympathy may come naturally to many clinicians but is often an unhelpful response to difficulties that patients and parents of sick children face. What is needed is an empathic response that engages the patient and parent and supports the medical decisions that need to be made. Prof Halpern offers a series of steps to operationalise empathic curiosity and build a therapeutic alliance, even if there has been disagreement. Host: Prof John Massie, Clinical Director, Children's Bioethics Centre, The Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne. Presenter: Prof Jodi Halpern MD, PhD, Chancellor’s Chair and Professor of Bioethics at UC Berkeley.