Hola a tod@s, my dear friends.
Today we talk about a very interesting opinion article published in The Atlantic, with a devastating headline: “Being a good doctor requires an understanding of people, not just science.” Although I personally think that empathy is a thing of everybody.
Empathy has always been considered much less important than technical skill, despite being a fundamental tool to establish a good doctor-patient relationship. And it can be measured.
It is shown that provides better satisfaction, less professional burnout and fewer medical mistakes.
In the United States, since 2015 the Medicine Universities have include psycho-technical tests that support these ‘less important’ aspects to practicing medicine.
There are people more empathetic by nature. But empathy is taught, as already happens at the Massachusetts General Hospital with the Empathetics program.
It seems that interest is growing, and other initiatives arise arround the world going on the same line that the IC-HU Project. Columbia University has pioneered a program in narrative medicine, which emphasizes the importance of understanding the biography of patients to provide compassionate care.
The improvement of active listening (doctors interrupted patients in 18 seconds on average), non-verbal and verbal communication and simulation of situations… All this goes in the same direction: increase the overall satisfaction, not only the user but also professional.
Let´s go!
Happy Friday,
Gabi
Gabi thanks for pointing to this. At least something is being done at last in this direction. The problem is that there is hardly any emphasis laid on empathy in medical curricula at undergraduate level much like 'communication with patients' has been neglected until recently. Hopefully things will improve. In the meantime, seniors can lead the way by being empathetic and demonstrating to the juniors how it is done! This will go a long way at present