TORONTO – “Good to see you. I’m sorry, it sounds like you’ve had a tough, tough week.”
From doctor to cancer patient, those words go a long way, according to a new study that looked at compassion and how to train future doctors in being sensitive to patients’ needs.
“In health care, we believe in being compassionate, but the reality is that many of us have a preference for technical issues over establishing emotional ties,” lead researcher, Dr. Ronald Epstein, said in a statement.
Epstein and his team of researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center say they’re the first to pinpoint and catalogue compassionate words and actions in doctor-patient conversations. They hope to apply their work to medical training.
Compassion is not the same as empathy, which Epstein had previously studied. According to the scientists, compassion is about a deeper understanding of a patient’s condition – doctors recognize the suffering, the lingering emotions and address the pain.
It’s a “sense of sharing and connection” that’s shared through conversation, Epstein says.
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His findings are based on interactions between 23 oncologists in private and public clinics in the New York area. Patients were in stage 3 or stage 4 cancer. Both doctors and patients agreed to be recorded during routine visits between November 2011 and June 2012.
In one exchange, a patient complained about a drug patch meant to ease pain.
“Who wants a patch that makes you drowsy, constipated and fuzzy? I’ll pass, thank you very much,” the doctor responded.
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In another case, a patient was scared to go on a planned trip to Arizona. The doctor responded with comforting words:
“You know, if you decide to do it, break down and allow somebody to meet you at the gates and use a cart or wheelchair to get you to your next gate and things like that. And having just sent my father-in-law off to Hawaii and told him he had to do that, he said ‘No, no, I can get there.’ Just, it’s okay. Nobody is gonna look at you and say, ‘What’s an able-bodied man doing in a cart?’ Just, it’s okay. It’s part of setting limits.”
Countless studies and even anecdotal evidence have suggested that understanding doctors and medical staff go a long way in fighting disease.
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The doctors say that compassion unfolds with time, and doctors need to challenge themselves to commit to the patient and difficult situation. Over time, their patients will admit their uncertainties and open up about how their cancer, or other illness, have changed their daily lives.
The full study was published in the journal Health Expectations.
carmen.chai@globalnews.ca
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