Compassion in Medicine (original) (raw)

Compassion in 21st century medicine: Is it sustainable?

Clinical Ethics, 2013

Philosophical and scientific understandings of compassion converge, both stressing its necessity for the moral life and human flourishing. I conceptualise a dynamic and frangible account of professional virtues, including compassion, and propose that mechanistic organisational systems of care and the biomedical paradigm create a strong risk of dehumanisation and the obliteration of compassion in healthcare. Additionally, the neoliberal market ideology, with its instrumental approach to individuals and commodification of healthcare creates a corrosive influence that alienates clinicians from their patients and severely curtails the scope for compassionate practice. The tension between efficiency and patient orientated care -although they need not be mutually exclusive -has become more acute in the current economic climate, at a time when the boundaries of medicine have broadened and expectations for healthcare have risen. This has created an unsustainable dynamic within which alienated healthcare professionals struggle to fulfil their healing roles and patients experience abandonment and more anxiety.

Integrating compassion to clinical care: a review of an emerging ‘Science’

Ceylon Journal of Medical Science, 2017

Sympathy, empathy and compassion are a family of connected mental states or emotions that relate to understanding and responding to another"s feelings. Compassion can be defined as a feeling that arises when witnessing another"s suffering, and motivates a desire to help. It differs from empathy, which is experiencing another"s feelings, and sympathy (a feeling of sorrow and concern to another"s pain or suffering). There is a public demand for health workers to demonstrate more compassion. This is reflected in compassion being stressed in mission statements of health institutions, and in the goals of regulatory organizations and medical councils. Increasingly, compassion and technical competence are both considered as integral elements of quality care. Despite their acknowledged importance in health care, empathy and compassion are rarely researched or taught explicitly. Measuring compassion is difficult and there is a need for psychometrically validated instruments. As a result, most research is on empathy. Empathy improves diagnostic accuracy, patient satisfaction, drug compliance, and lead to better outcomes (e.g. improved glycaemic control in patients with diabetes). Studies have found a rapid decline in empathy during the undergraduate medical course, believed to be due to poor role models, students experiencing harassments by senior staff, confronting clinical realities that counter student idealism, higher workload, and poor psychosocial support. Facing distressing situations with little support leads to empathic distress. The intensity of the latter is reduced by functioning as teams, listening to each other"s concerns non-judgementally, selfreflection to understand one"s own emotional reactions and cultivation of self-compassion. Skills of self-compassion and compassion towards others may be learnt through contemplative approaches and certain religious meditation techniques (e.g. "Metta" meditation in Buddhism). Sri Lanka could also draw on these indigenous cultural and religious practices and take a lead role globally in the emerging interdisciplinary "science" of compassion and health. Sympathy, empathy and compassion are conceptualized to be a family of connected mental states or emotions. They all relate to understanding and responding to another"s feelings. A simple, yet useful definition of compassion is that it is a feeling that arises in an individual who witnesses another"s suffering and is motivated to help [1]. There are other definitions especially in the context of compassion-based therapies in psychology. In INVITED REVIEW

Compassion: Wherefore Art Thou?

International Journal of Practice-based Learning in Health and Social Care, 2014

Compassion is a health professional value that has received a lot of attention recently. In this paper we consider the nature of compassion, its definition and its expression in practice. We further link compassion to patient-centred care. There is debate about whether compassion can be learned, and therefore assessed. There are similar discussions in relation to 'professionalism' and the effects of the hidden curriculum. We conclude that compassion is everyone's business and that learners require early and sustained patient and client contact with time for reflection to enable the delivery of compassionate care.

Compassion, the first emotion ditched when I’m busy’. The struggle to maintain our common humanity

MedEdPublish

Introduction A considerable body of literature has been built around the socialisation of medical students and junior doctors into the culture of medicine, yet our appreciation of how their affective learning is shaped through practice, over time, continues to challenge our understanding and subsequent educational practice. This study addresses this gap by using compassion as a lens to unpack affective learning. Methods This research asked interns undertaking their first year of medical practice ''What have been the main influences (positive and/or negative) in how you have learned to express compassion for your patients when working in the clinical context?" Their individual narratives, generated through reflective journals and unstructured interviews, when thematically analysed, told us how and why they struggled. Findings The eight interns expressed their struggle to maintain their compassionate aspirations when confronted with the complexity and competing demands of their community of practice. Their emotional disquiet triggered their safety ethic resulting in their compassion, a prosocial moral emotion, being replaced by a more reductionist approach where patient care was reframed as patient management.

Compassion in Medicine – A Psychiatric Physician’s View

OBM Integrative and Complementary Medicine, 2019

The power of understanding and imaginatively entering into another person's feelings. (www.thefreedictionary.com) Compassion: Sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it.

Humanity. A medical student's reflections on the healer role

The International Journal of Whole Person Care

Detailing the moving story of his interactions with a patient and her significant other, Ahmed Imcaoudene's Goodwin Prize-winning essay on the Healer Role was selected for presentation in McGill University's Physicianship curriculum. It was also read at the 4th International Congress on Whole Person Care on October 22nd, 2021, introducing profound discussions on compassion in healthcare.

Compassion as the Highest Ethic

2017

Ethics are governing principles that help guide people or groups when making moral decisions, judgments, or when engaging in actions. We draw upon our ethical principles when attempting to address some of the most complicated decisions in our lives, for example in health care when dealing with difficult matters such as assisted suicide or with terminally ill patients. Indeed, many modern professions (e.g., doctors, psychologists) have ethical codes to ensure that members engage in behaviors, which are seen as being the human ideal that recognizes the integrity, dignity, and the justice of the individuals and the situation. In this chapter, we posit that compassion might be the foundation principal necessary in making ethically wise decisions. To support this premise, we will first define compassion, and how it can be understood in terms of evolutionary function, physiological processes, and brain functioning. We will then examine the benefits of compassion and how this links with et...