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Empathy In Medical Schools

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An average emergency room visit consists of a five hour wait in a dank seating area, a pile of forms to fill out, a long wait in a hospital bed, and a doctor who speaks for five minutes about a treatment and leaves for the next patient. Hospitals and doctors’ offices are terrifying places for most and doctors rarely provide comfort to those who need it. Medical schools teach their students to be stone cold, logic based, machines, treating patients as diseases not people, and stripping away their pupil’s humanity. In a medical setting, caring for a patient includes “…an intense effort to appreciate a patient’s situation by asking the ‘right’ questions and then listening precisely in a manner that is unselfconscious, non-judgmental, and open …show more content…

Unfortunately, they do not understand what empathy really is. Hospitals use training programs that take a logical approach to teach physicians how to be empathetic when empathy is the opposite of logical reason; it is an emotional response to someone else’s suffering or fear. They treat patients as a body, “leading to alienation, misunderstanding, and poor treatment outcomes.” (Astrow, 420). Medical schools have students practice patient interactions on each other. These encounters do not properly prepare students for the level of concern and anxiety a patient may have. Simulated encounters are not taken seriously by students who are motivated by the grade they receive (Warmington, 33-332). Interviews done on new patients to an HIV clinic showed that most patients felt their doctors were knowledgeable about their disease, but lacked good communication skills (Dang, Giordano, Njue, Westobrook). Doctors learn how to speak biologically and understand administration jargon. Normal patients do not comprehend the impersonal language used by physicians and often become frightened and frustrated because the doctor cannot communicate properly. Understanding that patience is a virtue and taking the time to explain difficult diagnoses in a way so that the patient understands the information being presented is paramount when treating illness (“The Miracle in Front of

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Sometimes when patients come into the hospital it can be difficult at times for them when they are feeling bad in knowing exactly what is going on. There are cases where it’s

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Taneisha Grant’s narrative “When the Simulated Patient is for Real” discusses the real-life application of the information one learns in school by describing a situation between Doctor Grant and her patient, a worrisome man named Mr. G. Grant highlights the need to understand the patients themselves prior to treatment through her encounter with this patient. This encounter ultimately reminded her that her education will always continue to effect and to increase throughout her work. Grant takes a very patient-oriented view, making clear her medical aim to be helping her patients as best as possible. She mentions a need for objectivity, because it does not matter what “race, gender, or socioeconomic” status the patient has (Grant 182).

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Despite my young age of just 15, I had the opportunity to respond to any emergency and code in the hospital. I fell in love not only with the adrenaline rush but with the fact that I, a teenager, was experiencing in real life the events that I watched in medical-themed TV shows and movies. Because of my growing interest in the medical field, my mentor provided me with opportunities to observe the work of doctors and other medical professionals in almost every area of the hospital. Luckily, each experience in one area of the hospital lead to even greater opportunities in other areas, some of which few doctors receive. I observed several surgeries- including a gall bladder removal, an exploratory belly, and an open heart surgery-, small procedures in the Cath Lab, and the daily duties in the Radiology, Emergency, Nursing, Intensive Care, Physical Therapy, Pre-Operation, and Post- Operation Units.

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He quickly flipped through a couple of hundred pages and pointed to a section. He said, read this first and then we will talk about it. This was the start, while I didn’t identify it at the time, of a constant back and forth between me and a couple of emergency medicine physicians who just happened to work in my local small town emergency room. They would not just answer my questions, or just tell me to do this or that, but that they would point me in the right direction to learn on my own and then be there to support me and to answer my questions. It is a practice that I have continued my entire career.

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Summary of Carl Rogers Empathy Video In Carl Rogers’s empathy video, he describes the need for not just repeating what a patient or individual says, but truly trying to view their life through their eyes. In doing this you gain a much deeper understanding of the person. You are able to communicate more accurately with them, and also form a stronger bond of trust with the individual. Having empathy for the person can cause them to feel more accepted, and in turn help them accept themselves.

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This paper will explain the seven principles of patient-clinician communication. It will then apply three of those principles to my interactions with my patients. Next, it will describe three methods being used in my area of practice to improved communication between the patients and clinicians. It will ultimately choose one of those principles that applies best to my practice and clearly describe how I use it. It will describe ethical principles that can be applied to issues with patient-clinician communication.

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Leslie Jamison wrote a book called “The Empathy Exams”. She begins the book with her own personal experience as a medical actor who got paid for acting out symptoms for medical students to diagnose. In this book, the author mainly puts her focus on compulsory questions about how people can understand each other and can relate to one another. These questions include; How should we understand each other? How can we relate to someone’s pain even when the pain can be assumed and acted out? Throughout this book, Leslie Jamison is trying to identify how empathy can show, connect, or bring people closer to one another.

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It envelopes the ability to experience the feelings of another. This is what being a doctor is. Putting oneself in the other person's shoes and truly understanding their needs and feelings. Each of the above characteristics on their own without empathy would leave the patient-physician relationship without the relationship. But with true empathy, a doctor can know and understand his patient more completely and be able to communicate more fully.

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The doctors treat the patients as a collective group, to be medicated and sent on their way. Often times, they will skim over the patient’s problems, rather than getting to the root of the issue. Status hierarchy, Depersonalization, Adjustment, and Institutionalization are all real issues in the medical field. This movie uses humor and sometimes shocking scenes to provide a perspective into total

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(Julia J. 2013) Emotion and willingness to treat have significant influence on the therapeutic relationship between practitioner and patient. Patient is our teacher. Patch Adams understands himself better after helping Rudy. There is always something to learn from each patient. Some patients with chronic disease know more about it than any practitioner because they live with the disease for decades.

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However, the question of whether or not empathy equates to better patient health remains. Proving that empathy does directly impact health, La Monica, Wolf, Madea, and Oberst, (1987) found that significantly reduced anxiety, depression, and hostility were observed in patients being cared for by nurses exhibiting high levels of empathy. Moreover, in a study overviewing the effectiveness of empathy on patient compliance and satisfaction, affective empathy resulting in a physician-patient partnership, was found to be the greatest factor in increasing compliance and satisfaction (Kim, Kaplowitz, & Johnston, 2004). Additionally, Bourgault et al. (2015) found that in nurses, higher levels of empathy was associated with greater psychological well-being, proving that empathy does not only benefit the patient, but the practitioner as well.

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The components of empathy themselves are extensive in the explanation of how health care givers are able to implement empathy into their daily practices. If these components are met, a healthy therapeutic relationship can be established between patients and the doctor and/or nurse. Doctors and nurses are set out to follow a core set of shared aims or purposes in forming an empathetic, therapeutic relationship between themselves and their patient. Including: 1. “initiating supportive, interpersonal communication in order to understand the perceptions and needs of the patient, 2.

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For the month of May, I spent my time alongside medical students from Boston University and Dr. B. Each day, I observed either the medical students or Dr. B in patient rooms and tried to absorb as much information and procedures as I could. Whenever I had a question regarding a patient's case or medicine in general, Dr. B always gave me a clear answer.

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Investing my time in the care of my patient gives the opportunity to not only assist them in a difficult situation, but also to learn more about their diagnosis and the treatment, while comparing it to what we have learned in class. For example, I had a patient that suffered from Sickle Cell Disease and came to the ER during a crisis. Correlating this case to the books and the content learned in class, these patients receive at least 1000 mL of fluids, pain medication, and oxygen. Additionally, I had a patient with meningitis. This individual presented with common symptoms such as nuchal rigidity, muscle pain, fever, and chills.

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