Appropriate Behavior of Doctors to Patients

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Throughout professional jobs dealing with medicine or humans in general like doctors, clinical psychologists or physical therapists, the main question is how much empathy or compassion, for example a doctor should have toward his/her patients? There are a lot of speculations toward this. Some people say that there is no time for empathy and should just get down to the facts at hand. For example, general doctors that do not specify in a certain area usually see a multitude of patients in a day, so they only have a set time they can interact with their patients. As a result, some believe that set time should be used to tell the facts of test results or the outcome for why the patients came in the first place. Doctors and professional jobs dealing with humans in general should have empathy toward their patients.
There is research that supports against just talking about the facts to patients and having empathy toward them instead. According to Daniel Goleman (2013), author of Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence, explains that doctors of medicine who get sued for misconduct in the United States “generally make no more medical errors than those who are not sued. The main difference…often comes down to the tenor of the doctor-patient relationship. Those who are sued, it turns out, have fewer signs of emotional rapport” (p. 109). This means doctors that were sued may not have listened to their patients nor had a close relationship with their patients so the patients did not feel comforted and understood but just another number in that doctor’s file. However, this should not mean that the only reason to have empathy and compassion toward your patients is to not get sued, but having empathy toward a person like a patient can have the...

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... I must be able to understand myself to understand others. I must have inner focus and other focus so I can focus on my needs and my patient’s needs. If I want to be a psychologist in the future, I must learn to be attune with peoples' emotions and learn verbal cues; however, activate my TPJ circuit in my mind so I will not get distractions by the constant streams of emotions and focus on the task at hand which is helping people live successful lives.

Works Cited

Goleman, D. (2013). Focus: The hidden driver of excellence. New York: HarperCollins
Halifax, J. (2010). Compassion and the true meaning of empathy [Audio file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/joan_halifax
McGonigal, J. (2012). The game that can give you 10 extra years of life [Audio file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_the_game_that_can_give_you_10_extra_years_of_life

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