Is Your Doctor Empathetic?

After working in a hospital for a short period of time, you realize what is meaningful to patients and what makes one hospital “better” than another. Patients rarely complain about the level of care they receive. Obviously, there are hospitals that specialize in certain things; however, every medical facility follows similar procedures and protocols. The biggest complaint or compliment from patients is how well the staff can connect with them, make them feel comforted, and the amount of trust that they have for their team assisting them.  Jean Decety, in his presentation, focused on the idea of empathy, touching on the idea that studies have shown that medical students have their highest level of empathy when first entering medical school and their lowest when graduating. The necessity to fix the problem of an emotional disconnect between individuals, especially in the field of medicine, is a problem that needs to be addressed.

Recently, the New York Times published an article written by Dr. Pauline Chen about the research that has been done to show both the disconnect that sometimes exists between doctors and patients and the ultimate effect that disconnect has on medical care, and more importantly, on a way to combat this issue. Dr. Chen spoke about one of her colleagues, a surgeon, who is renowned for his love and passion for what he does, but also for his inability to empathize with patients. No matter the skill set of a physician, an inability to relate to patients and an inability to effectively communicate those feelings, can lead to the downfall of a patient’s evaluation of quality treatment.

Empathy, for many years, has been incorrectly treated as an innate quality that one has as an integrated part of their personality. Dr. Helen Riess has shown that through carefully designed training modules you can, in fact, teach individuals to be more empathetic. Through methods such as watching videos of tense exam rooms that show measures of electrical skin conductance, a measure that can be directly related to empathy and emotions, of both the patient and the doctor, physicians became aware of what makes patients emotionally uncomfortable. Another lesson had doctors view images of patient’s emotions. After analyzing patient evaluations of the doctor’s empathy from before the training and comparing it with their empathy after the training, Riess found that doctors who went through the training program handled patient interaction in a much better way. From eye contact to remaining calm when a situation got heated, doctors were much more competent in connecting with patients and making them feel cared for after the training.

As both Dr. Reiss and Dr. Decety have indicated, the fact that we have access to data quantifying intangible, yet very important factors such as empathy, provides us with a unique opportunity to make a change in the way that we evaluate quality control. Health care professionals need to take advantage of the opportunity to have a glimpse into what their patient is actually thinking, and make a change. As Dr. Chen wrote, greater physician empathy has been correlated with fewer medical errors, more satisfied and happy patients, and better outcomes for the patient. If these reasons aren’t sufficient enough, do it for yourself. As Dr. Decety said, empathy is just as beneficial for the individual as it is for the patient. 

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/can-doctors-learn-empathy/