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
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...
What the research proved, was the enrichment of patients and an improved treatment outcomes. Empathy was the key to the success, thus a huge strength surrounding patient care (2011). However, I personally view empathy with many limitations. Epistemological Assumptions are one limitation when practitioners listen with third ears. For example, when a doctor doesn’t listen to the patient, rather, listens to the family or nurses. (2003) Practitioners will sometimes focus on feelings, not meanings. This in its self can be limiting, depending on the issue. If it’s a trauma, moving past the devastation is virtually impossible when focusing on the emotions it brings. Finding meaning in the experience, will allow the patient to heal. (2003). The expert knower, further undermines the patients story by creating superiority over the patient. All of these diminish the client and their experience, further breaking the bond of the client therapist
To be able to understand how empathy works between a certain group of people, it is necessary to know what empathy means. I found an interesting definition of empathy, as a crucial component of the helping relationship, a need to understand people ' distress, and to provide supportive interpersonal communication. Empathy is the ability to recognize the emotions of others. Empathy does not mean that we live other people’ emotions, but it means that we understand other people ' emotions from our experiences. Empathy does not mean to cancel your personality, but to understand how people perceive the reality. It is the ability to read information coming through nonverbal channels. In this
Majoring in medicine is one of the most intellectually challenging things that I’ve ever been a part of. When faced with task to do a research paper depicting a problem in your major, well because the medical field is so broad so I found a topic that is almost never talked about. “Love and Medicine”, I chose this topic because it deals with physicians being more than “friendly” with their patients as unethical as this may seem it happens almost. The relationship between a patient and a doctor should be extremely platonic; doctors should always know his or her boundaries, display a level of professionalism, and show as much humility in their job as possible.
In “The Baby in the Well: The Case Against Empathy” by Paul Bloom, Paul want’s his readers to understand that empathy is not very helpful unless it is fused with values and reason.
Social interactions are characterized by a fundamental process that allows to understand others ‘sensations by sharing emotions, feelings and beliefs. This ability is called empathy, a controversial and complex “umbrella term” that comprises several elements (Davis et al., 1996). Many researchers are investigating empathy trying to better define it and to decompose its subconstructs (that often overlap between them). A common shared definition suggest that empathy comprises cognitive components like perspective taking, mentalizing or self–other distinction and emotional components such as resonance with the emotions of others and the generation of an appropriate emotional response (Davis, 1996; Decety and Jackson, 2004). In other words, we
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
Providing clinical treatment, education, and empathy while involving the patient in their care achieves a win-win situation for all. I have adapted my practice to address the primary needs of each patient; education and treatment are modified to attain the best outcome for every client. Segueing from the bedside to clinical research has permitted me to concentrate on the distinct needs of each patient; while allowing me to contribute to the advancement of science and treatment modalities. As I work towards obtaining my advanced practice degree, I have focused on the evolving changes in health care (Mudd, 2014, p. 2).
“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.
Humans have almost always had the ability to feel what each other is feeling. However, empathy is a relatively new term that stems from the German word Einfühlung. By the 19th century, most humans were starting to become aware of this aspect of human nature that compassionate and perspective-taking come from, according to the book “Empathy and Its Development”. There are two types of empathy: affective and cognitive. Affective empathy refers to our despondence to other people’s mental state, such as feeling sympathy when seeing a starving child on television. Cognitive Empathy is human’s ability to understand different perspectives and mental states. Rather than helping for the sake of self-interest or heroic recognition, scientists now argue that both forms of empathy are an integral part to humanity. Without empathy, it would be challenging to relate to others, thus dehumanizing others and promoting the causes for violence. In the Ted Talk “The Empathic Civilization”, Jeremy Rifkin states, “All humans are soft-wired with mirror neurons so that, if I 'm observing you, your anger, your frustration, your sense of rejection, your joy, whatever it is, and I can feel what you 're doing, the same neurons will light up in me as if I 'm having that experience myself”. The biological reasoning behind this social aspect of human nature reveals that
Empathy is the ‘capacity’ to share and understand another person’s ‘state of mind’ or their emotion. It is an experience of the outlook on emotions of another person being within themselves (Ioannides & Konstantikaki, 2008). There are two different types of empathy: affective empathy and cognitive empathy. Affective empathy is the capacity in which a person can respond to another person’s emotional state using the right type of emotion. On the other hand, cognitive empathy is a person’s capacity to understand what someone else is feeling. (Rogers, Dziobek, Hassenstab, Wolf & Convit, 2006). This essay will look at explaining how biology and individual differences help us to understand empathy as a complex, multi-dimensional trait.
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.
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...
Empathy is the ability to imagine yourself in someone else’s position and to intuit what that person is feeling (Pink, 2006). Rather than simply sympathizing, empathy enables us to put ourselves into the shoes of another and actually feel what they are feeling. This vicarious sense allows us to better understand people and their experiences. Understanding others and their experiences is vital in education. Whether dealing with different races, religions, sexes, etc., empathy provides us with an avenue to widespread understanding of others that even language cannot.