{"id":11223,"date":"2018-06-18T11:40:41","date_gmt":"2018-06-18T16:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wholehealthchicago.com\/?p=11223"},"modified":"2021-07-29T10:08:24","modified_gmt":"2021-07-29T15:08:24","slug":"physicians-and-empathy-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wholehealthchicago.com\/blog\/2018\/06\/18\/physicians-and-empathy-2","title":{"rendered":"Physicians And Empathy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Some time ago I read\u00a0an essay by a woman who described her experiences being employed as a medical actor<\/a>. She\u2019d been hired, along with some retirees, local theater majors, and a few people who were just curious, to play the role of patient in a training program for a local medical school.<\/p>\n
To start, she was assigned an identity that actually contained a lot of detail: \u201cYou\u2019re a 23-year-old unemployed graphic designer with recurring abdominal pain. You\u2019re from a small town in Iowa, where your father was killed in a car accident.\u201d All fictional, of course, but from a medical perspective all potentially important information.<\/p>\n
Wearing a hospital gown and lying in a hospital bed in a specially designed suite that allowed observers to watch the interaction unobserved, she\u2019d be interviewed by a medical resident, who would then perform a physical exam and leave. Both she and the hidden observers had checklists of what was supposed to be covered and what might be overlooked.<\/p>\n
She\u2019d been told that her response to Question #31 was especially important to the examination. Namely, \u201cDid the examining resident voice empathy for your problem?\u201d<\/p>\n
Empathy is neither sympathy nor compassion\n<\/strong>This issue of empathy in the medical profession is a difficult one, and probably a significant factor in the public\u2019s rising disenchantment not only with doctors but with the healthcare system in general.<\/p>\n
Empathy as used in this setting is your doctor\u2019s ability to share your emotions and be involved enough in your situation to share your distress. Your doctor must, at least for a moment or two, think of herself as you.<\/p>\n
Empathy is not the same as sympathy<\/u>. With sympathy, we have a concern for someone else and a wish to see them happier. We send recently bereaved people sympathy cards hoping to help them through a difficult time. We don\u2019t send empathy cards.<\/p>\n
Empathy is not the same as compassion<\/u>. Compassion is more transcendent. It may even trigger an active desire to help. We feel compassion toward a village of starving children, but our prevailing emotion is neither empathy nor sympathy.<\/p>\n
All this said, when I talk to new patients about their experiences with other physicians, or to longstanding patients about their experiences with specialists, I usually hear one of two things:<\/p>\n