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Primary and secondary empathy
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Quality Healthcare Includes Empathy
A man walks into an emergency room with an intense pain in his abdomen. He is hoping to find a doctor who knows how to treat him. The doctor enters his room and begins robotically palpating his abdomen, showing no hint of recognition for the pain he is in. The man begins to ask himself, “Does this doctor care that I am in extreme pain?” He then wonders, “If he doesn’t care that I am in pain, how motivated can he be to ease my pain?” This might seem like a silly question. If the physician didn’t care about healing people, why would he become a doctor? Modern technology has caused doctors to become complacent and emotionally detached from their patients. Doctors must be empathetic towards their patients in order to deliver quality healthcare despite the lack of time they have for their patients.
The patient’s perception of the doctor in this situation is that he lacks empathy. Empathy can be described as the ability for one person to understand another’s feelings and thoughts. The role of empathy in healthcare is very important; more specifically, it is crucial for doctors to be able to effectively express empathy without compromising their primary objective, which is to diagnose and treat patients.
While the science of medicine is primarily based on the function of the human body, it cannot be ignored that emotional health plays a vital role in a patient’s quality of life. Improving physical health will inevitably improve emotional health. The appropriate way to approach healing is with an understanding of this concept. In the article “Empathy in Medicine—A Neurobiological Perspective,” Dr. Helen Rice states:
Empathetic physicians can obtain critical information and ins...
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Rice, H. (2010). Empathy in medicine--a neurobiological perspective. JAMA, 304(14), 1605. Retrieved from http://drscottwright.wikispaces.com/file/view/Empathy and Medicine - A Neurobiological Perspective.pdf
Switankowsky, I. (2005). From detached concern to empathy: Humanizing medical practice. Humane Medicine Health Care, 5(2), Retrieved from http://www.humanehealthcare.com/Article.asp?art_id=834
Hardee, J. (2010, February 16). The role of empathy in healthcare. Retrieved from http://realbalance.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=143&Itemid=999
Torrey, T. (2011, September 13). [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://patients.about.com/od/therightdoctorforyou/a/docpatientcomm.htm
Wolfe, S., Carome, M., Barbehenn, E., & Sasich, L. [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://www.worstpills.org/public/page.cfm?op_id=3
When we see patients, we must remember that we are not simply treating a disease. We are caring for people with lives, hobbies, jobs, families, and friends, who are likely in a very vulnerable position. We must ensure that we use the status of physicians to benefit patients first and foremost, and do what we promised to when we entered the profession: provide care and improve quality of life, and hopefully leave the world a little better than it was
Does your head hurt, does your body ache, and how are your bowl movements? After a head to toe assessments, touching and prodding, the physician writes up a prescription and explains in a medical jargon the treatment plan. As the short consultation comes to a close, it’s wrapped up with the routine “Please schedule an appointment if there are no signs of improvement”. This specific experience often leaves the patient feeling the “medical gaze” of the physicians. Defined by good and good, the medical gaze is the physicians mentality of objectifying their patient to nothing more than a biological entity. Therefore it is believed that the medical gaze moves away from compassionate and empathetic care, thus leaving patients feeling disconnected from their physicians. In order to understand how the medical gaze has stemmed into patient care, I begin with observations of a Grand Round, lectures for the progress of continuing medical education of physicians. There are expectations of physicians to be informed of cutting edge medical procedures and biotechnology since it can result in a less aggressive and more efficient treatment plan of patients. As I witness the resident physician’s maturation of medical competence in during a Surgical Grand Round at UC Irvine Medical Center, it has shifted the paradigm of the medical gaze and explains how competence is a form of compassion and empathy in patient care.
Burton defines empathy as the ability to not only recognize but also to share another person’s or a fictional character’s or a sentient beings’ emotions. It involves seeing a person’s situation from his or her own perspective and then sharing his or her emotions and distress (1). Chismar posits that to empathize is basically to respond to another person’ perceived state of emotion by experiencing similar feelings. Empathy, therefore, implies sharing another person’s feeling without necessary showing any affection or desire to help. For one to empathize, he or she must at least care for, be interested in or concerned about
Empathy is used to create change in the world by reaching out to the emotions of people and attending to them. It is used to help others learn and decide on matters that would not be reasonable without feelings attached to them. Empathy helps bring together communities that would have long ago drifted apart, but instead welcomed all who were different. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. This attribute of human-beings really allows us to not only attend to situations as if they were our own, but it allows us to feel most of what others feel because humans are very much alike in some ways. In many of the articles and novels that we have read this quarter, characters from different pieces of context have portrayed empathy whether it was toward
Empathy, is a self-conscious characteristic human beings hold that allows them to understand another individual’s situation and feelings (Segal, Cimino, Gerdes &Wagaman, 2013). In regard to ho...
According to the College of Nurse of Ontario (2006), empathy is one of the five key components of the nurse-client relationship and is one of the most powerful tools. You don’t need to know how your patient feels to be empathetic but letting them know that you are trying to understand is a good start. It can be used to describe a variety of experiences and had been defined by emotional researchers “as the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling” (University of California, Berkeley). Having the ability to empathize doesn’t mean you will or that you are willing to help someone in need but it is an important first step towards a compassionate
“The Doctor” presented interesting and emotional concepts accurately representing the philosophies and behaviors of many medical professionals. Perhaps its viewing would be beneficial by members of our medical community, and provide a framework to the personalization of patient care.
Ramachandran, V.S. Interview by Jason Marsh. "Do Mirror Neurons Give Us Empathy?" Empathy. 29 Mar 2012. University of California, Berkeley. 29 Mar 2012. Print.
I shadowed a primary care physician (PCP), a cardiologist, and a General surgeon in Little Rock. I was introduced to triaging, monitoring patient diets, and transitioning from diagnosis to treatment. These experiences exposed me to some of the immense responsibilities of doctors. Through my experience shadowing Dr. Richard Jackson, I learned the necessity of compassion in a physician and that it is as important as medical procedures. I observed him putting a colostomy bag on a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with colon cancer. When she recovered from surgery, he noticed she was sad and scared about the colostomy bag. He comforted her by telling stories of many other children who also had colostomy bags at a young age and finished his conversation by making funny faces at her. This made her happy and her smile expressed joy and the beauty of being alive. It taught me that a patient’s emotional health is as important as their physical health, and both factors need to be considered when providing care. This shadowing experience enabled me to see what it is like to be as a practicing physician and further reinforced my desire to be a
Before reading these chapters, and listening to the lectures I had thought empathy was the same thing as sympathy. This brought me back to my first counselling session. It was about ten years ago, and I was telling the counsellor all about my problems at the time. When I looked over to see what she had to say, she was bawling her eyes out beside me. I had always assumed that is what empathy looked like, because I never understood the difference between the two, until now.
Empathy is biased in many ways because connecting can others can seem hard if they are nothing like us. We might try to denying this, but “recent studies have shown
Upon returning to work, Jack changes his outlook towards his job, his coworkers, patients and his interns. He teaches his students exactly what it will feel like to be the patient. He was able to take his experience and teach others the importance of communicating empathy in the healthcare field. He is now able to look past his patients’ illnesses and treat them as patients with feelings and respect. The lesson he takes with him is was how important life is when we use the right communication.
Empathy is intrinsically intertwined with emotions and allows use to “feel” things we’ve never actually experienced. Legendary psychologist Paul Ekman demonstrated in a study in 1965 how facial expressions are universal and that universality permits all people to connect with the emotions felt by the person being presented in the pictures. In Ekman’s study, he used a chart with facials expressions and showed them to subjects from America, Japa...
Moreover, Empathy is defined as the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another and can be reflected in several aspects, such as affective, cognitive, emotional and compassionate. Affective and cognitive empathy are illustrated by processing someone’s perspective and being able to identify and understand their emotions...
It is about the personal understanding and treatment of the patient as an individual, interpreting the situation from their perspective. Gain a complete understanding grounded in professional and research-based knowledge of clinical practice; personal reflection and a consciousness of the patient’s attitudes, beliefs and behaviours. (Olckers, Gibbs & Duncan 2007: 2-3) Empathy involves gaining insight into patients’ backgrounds, core values, relationships and medical history through dialogue. Chochinov 2007: 1877 - 1877. Reflective Dimension:..