BLOG: The ‘art’ of empathy
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Earlier in the week, I was in the middle of a busy clinic, when a nurse practitioner handed me a bag with a present and a letter from one of our mutual patients who came to see her for a follow-up visit. I have been managing this patient’s thyroid disorder for few years.
I was so happy and uplifted when I opened the bag and saw the present and the letter. The patient purchased this piece of ceramic (Figure) from a local art shop and requested the word “Empathy” be displayed on the piece.
In the letter, she expressed her acknowledgement about what she has heard me preach about empathy.
During her regular visits, since she established care with our clinic, the patient and I would exchange thoughts about the importance of empathy in the doctor-patient relationship.
I was so humbled by the present, and I placed it on my desk in the clinic, as part of the decorations and collections that I have on the desk.
Empathy is such a universal emotion with broad applications in social interactions — health care, schools and the workplace, to name a few.
Evidence has shown the importance of so-called “clinical empathy” in the doctor-patient relationship. I have been fortunate to study and research empathy over the last several years. One particular area of interest that I have studied is whether empathy in humans is innate or whether it can be acquired.
One mechanism by which doctors may acquire or enhance empathy toward their patients is when the doctors become patients. It does open our eyes when we experience what patients do. While we as doctors all have empathy (variably), I have come to realize through reading, researching and personal experiences that empathy can be acquired or enhanced and coached.
Finally, I wish to confess that I did not have a high level of clinical empathy during the first 15 years of my clinical practice. I explained how I became a “trained again doctor” in a prior post.
In that post, I explained that I have become a better doctor, a doctor with more empathy due to an acute transformation that was triggered inside me by watching a movie over 10 years ago: “The Doctor” starring William Hurt released in 1991.
The movie was based on a true story written by Dr. Edward Rosenbaum in 1988.
The movie and the book so powerfully illustrate the transformation that occurred in a doctor after he became a patient. He became a doctor with profuse empathy!
In an email, Theresa McNamara, my patient who gave me this ceramic gift (and provided consent that I include her name), said the following:
“Somehow, we have to get the conversation going about empathy, about compassion, about how we are all interconnected. We all need each other. We all — doctors, patients, caregivers — need to communicate, need to share the positives that occur, need to support each other”.
Empathy is a universal emotion. In the picture that accompanies this post, “Empathy” is also a piece of art.
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