Dr James Doty is the author of the best selling book Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart. As director of CCARE, Dr. Doty has collaborated on many research projects focused on compassion and altruism including the use of neuro-economic models to assess altruism, use of the CCARE compassion cultivation training in individuals and its effect, assessment of compassion and altruistic judgment. Presently, he is developing collaborative research projects to assess the effect of compassion training on immunologic and other physiologic determinates of health, the use of mentoring as a method of instilling compassion in students, and the use of compassion training to decrease pain.

Dr Doty presented at our first conference in 2019, and the title of the session, shared with Fiona Kerr was: Compassion. Is it all in the mind?