Chapter 4 presents the results of a study by Palaganas, involving participants in an online continuing education course that used an emoji-capable, text-based platform, offered through the Center for Medical Simulation in Boston, Massachusetts. The chapter outlines the study, the compiled data, and the relevant findings. The study yields further insights into the potential for using the emoji code as an effective literacy and communication tool in a higher education context – namely, in a healthcare professional education program. Further, there is discussion of an interview with Dr. Shuhan He, a prominent proponent of emoji use in healthcare situations, wherein he goes over the impetus for his creation of the heart emoji.

The goal of Chapter 5 is to examine emoji use across the healthcare landscape, as well as what implications related to emoji theories can be gleaned from such usage and how emoji use can be applied to training healthcare professionals more generally. Prominently discussed in the chapter are clinical studies that indicate emoji writing (between practitioners and patients) may actually enhance medical outcomes. Also highlighted is the empirically attested fact that emoji scales and models may be good gauges for assessing well-being. The overall conclusion that can be drawn from the studies is that emoji might affect patients positively. Emoji are not medical cures in themselves, needless to say; they are simple pictures that affect patients positively, much like humor. They may also counteract the so-called nocebo effect, defined as a detrimental effect on health produced by psychological or psychosomatic factors such as negative expectations of treatment or prognosis.