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Patient Care Reflection

Decent Essays

As one thinks about healthcare its can be assumed that compassion is an automatic response from professionals in the field. Although this should be the case in some instances, it is not. However, there are times when there is a need to show more compassion to some patients than others this is where it can seem that no compassion is given. After reading multiple stories this semester, I realized that compassion can be given in different ways with a patient – caregiver relationship. The stories that stuck to me in regards to how compassion had an effect on the ultimate outcomes of each of the patients included “Mending” by Sallie Bingham, Applicants by Felicia Ackerman, and People Like that are the only people here” by Lorrie Moore. From my understanding compassion is the building block for a rewarding patient- caregiver relationship.
Throughout the readings, I realized each story display a different aspect of the patient-caregiver relationship. Before reading my thoughts were very limited on what a patient-caregiver relationship consisted of. From my perspective, I thought that caregiver is the doctor or nurse that is caring for someone who is sick. As I continued to read the stories and reading the discussion post each week, I realized that this is not always the case. The caregiver can be family, friends or anyone who is tending care to someone in need. I also learned the patient does not always have to be sick. Better yet the caregiver and patient roles can be interchanging between those in the relationship depending on the circumstance. According to recent reports, caregivers have “much or greater emotional distress than the patient themselves” (Mosher, Bakas, & Champion, 2013). In “People Like That…” the patient- caregiver relationship was distant. From this story, I realized that not all caregivers will have the patient’s best interest at heart. In this story, the mother and the son were both patients. The doctor would rarely answer any of the mother’s questions regarding her child's illness. Due to the healthcare professionals disregard to the feelings the mother was having it came to a point where the mother was afraid to ask a question because she did not want to become and annoyance to the doctors.

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