Empathy In The Healthcare Field

"Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another and feeling with the heart of another. " - Alfred Adler. It's important to be empathetic but their are risks associated with it. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee explores this in many situations and examples.

The care that I will give my patient will also involve being empathic. This will enhance the development of the therapeutic relationship that will finally improve the outcomes. Compassion and empathy will make my patients more forthcoming with their symptoms. This yields accurate diagnosis. It also improves care given to patients. The interaction that takes place during this process affects the patient's recovery process. I also intend to cultivate a culture of trust between me and my patients. It has to be there for me to realize effective therapeutic relationship that leads to job satisfaction.

The importance of empathy in any helping profession, medical or social, cannot be overstated. The workers that exemplified it in their practice did the best that they could with their limited resources.

14 Apr. 2017. This documentary gives an in-depth view into compassion fatigue through the experiences of others. Its establishes the connection of compassion fatigue to “helping professions” (doctors, social workers, or emergency workers). Through the testimony of professions involved in tragedy such as 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the ER, the viewer receives personal information on the causes, effects, and the seriousness of compassion fatigue on a professional and personal level.

We live in the age of rapid change. Empathy can help us navigate thru this new world of innovation. Not only do we get along better with our peers, empathy will help us resolve conflicts more quickly, and work collaboratively with our colleagues. Empathy, when properly defined, is vital and should not be so quickly dismissed. Far from an inhibitor to reason, it is powerful complement to reason.

We talk a lot about empathy at Moz, and that’s because the value of empathy cannot be overstated — in marketing or in life. Empathy is a super power. Dr. Brené Brown describes that super power as “feeling with people,” and it creates a spark of connection for the person being empathized with. That spark can be fanned into the burning passion

When choosing to pursue a career in the health care field, most enter the workplace with the desire to help and provide care for patients who are critically ill (Lombardo & Eyre, 2011). Far too often, these health professionals who were once sympathetic and caring become victims of compassion fatigue (Lombardo & Eyre, 2011). As a working health professional it is ones duty to compassionately care for the sick, wounded and traumatized patients, which involves being exposed daily to the patient’s pain, suffering and trauma (Coetzee & Klopper, 2010). Experiencing this type of trauma first hand is an un-recognized side effect of being a health care professional (Briscoe, 2014). It is easy to get wrapped up in patients, their

Defined by a physician’s understanding of their patient’s perspective, physician empathy enhances a patient’s perception of being helped, improves patient feelings of empowerment, and increases patient perceptions of a social support network. (source 4) Studies have shown that when physicians are running low on empathy, patients take significantly longer to recover from illnesses and become less likely to follow treatment recommendations, suggesting an inverse relationship between the prevalence of burnout and measures of patient satisfaction with medical care. (source 5) Decreased feelings of empathy and a diminished relationship between the doctor and the patient has also been proven to lead to patient neglect in which healthcare staff fail to maintain the standards of optimal patient care. Such findings highlight the importance of burnout to leaders of the medical field and to administrators that have responsibility for the workplace environment. (source

Empathy should play an active role in the daily lives of everyone, but in particular in the day-to-day lives of a healthcare professional. Healthcare professionals have the unique and challenging job of counseling patients in times of need, whether that is in the setting of a newly diagnosed disease or in the death of a family member. This unique challenge requires all healthcare professionals to be skilled at using empathy in the appropriate circumstances.

Empathy provides the nurse with the perspective that is necessary to consider the most appropriate actions and interventions significant to a patient’s individual experience (Boggs. 2011, p.107). Failure of the nurse to empathize with a patient can result in a strained therapeutic relationship as a result of providing inadequate emotional support and client education (Boggs. 2011, p.107). In providing empathetic care it is important to mentally picture the client’s situation and perform self-checks, thereby assessing for personal bias and stereotypes (Arnold. 2011 p. 84). Additionally, there are multiple barriers to providing empathetic care, which include lack of time, lack of trust, lack of privacy, and lack of support, amongst others (Boggs. 2011, p.115).

Another crucial interpersonal skill which assumes a critical part in a radiographer- patient relationship is empathy. Eunson (2012) describes empathy as the emotional appreciation of another’s feelings. Not to be confused as sympathy, but empathetic people might squeeze ones hand in times of trouble, or offer kind words when one is grieving. According to research, empathy is ‘to recognise others' emotions, the reason for these emotions, and to have the capacity to take part in the emotional journey of a single person without directly be coming apart of it’ (Casselden, 1988). Needless to say,

Daniel H. Pink once said, “Empathy is about standing in someone else’s shoes, feeling with his or her heart, seeing with his or her eye. Not only is empathy hard to outsource and automate but it makes the world a better place”. This quote is explaining the basics of empathy. Empathy is seeing a problem or life in general, from another person’s of view. It allows us to understand another and overall helps make the world a better place.

Empathy is the ability to understand and experience the feelings of others, particularly others’ suffering. Humanity’s gift of understanding complex emotions ushers in a new way of understanding ourselves and how we react to stimuli. This ultimately leads to questioning of everything, leading us to one strong notion: Does empathy guide or hinder moral action?

Most definitions of empathy are based on the same core idea - empathy is the ability to understand and identify someone else’s thoughts and feelings, as if they were one’s own (wordreference online dictionary, 2016). Although it’s been said “there are probably nearly as many definitions of empathy as people working on the topic.” (de Vignemont & Singer, 2006, p.435) suggesting that there is no singular way to even define empathy, let alone explain its impact on our behaviour. Due to the sheer depth and complexity of empathy it’s understandable that each discipline within psychology presents it’s own explanation for why we experience it, and how it can affect our interaction with the world around us. Psychologists have been exploring empathy for decades, in hope of gaining a complete grasp of what it means and how it can vary between each person, therefore its important we look at different psychological perspectives to try to understand it’s many dimensions.

Social Justice is defined as “the equal distribution of opportunities, rights, and responsibility despite differences in physical traits and/or beliefs and behavior. It is an international and multifaceted issue that fights for better treatment and equality of people.” (“Pachamama Alliance,” 2017). According to this definition, my understanding of social justice is that it is a way to advocate for other individuals in order to assist their needs in society. For example, I would want to advocate for Hispanic mothers and children who have been through abuse. My empathy towards this group started because of my personal history with an abusive father who suffered from alcoholism. “Empathy involves thinking about a person and the challenges he or she is facing and coming to understand what it is like for that person to have that experience.” (Cameron & Keenan, 2013, p. 72).