The Empathetic Doctor
Anonymous
To be truly empathetic, do we need to have experienced the things that our patients go through? As a white 23 year-old female, can I fully understand what it is like to be a black, obese woman with diabetes, or a 93 year-old who cannot walk because of heart failure? This is a visual representation of the impossible task that we endeavour to overcome to become fully empathetic doctors.
Whole Person Care – Year One
I really like this piece and feel that the message it is trying to convey is done so simply but very effectively. It explores empathy and makes us question ourselves as to whether we truly can be empathetic towards patients if we have not experienced their situations ourselves. Therefore by this reckoning, doctors strive for the impossible in their efforts to understand how patients experience illness. The image really does bring to life the huge array of problems that patients can approach a doctor with and highlights the enormity of the challenge that doctors face.
I found this piece extremely thought provoking; it emphasises the variety of different people we will encounter throughout our medical career and the range of different health problems they may present with. It raises the question of how we can endeavour to be empathetic towards our patients and understand their predicament without having experienced such situations ourselves. Without building a rapport with patients, understanding their life choices and motives could prove to be a huge challenge, but a necessary one to overcome if we are to reach our full potential as doctors and provide our patients with the holistic care they deserve.
To me, this piece is one of the most relevant. As first year medical students, the majority of the course is based on theory. This piece, I feel, emphasises the gap between the theory we learn (the importance of being an empathic, holistic doctor) and the ability to put that knowledge into clinical practice when it comes to actually treating patients. Having empathy for and understanding patients we have few common experiences with is always going to be a challenge, but it is through experience and working with those more skilled than ourselves that we will gain the ability to truly connect with our patients. In the creator’s reflection, gaining this empathy is labelled an ‘impossible task’. While I do not believe this impossibility to be true, I can relate to the sentiment.
This piece is simplistic but expresses a complex issue, in which intersectionality and the non-judgemental nature of medicine come to the forefront. It is, as the artist says, impossible to fully relate to every patient you see as a medical professional, however empathising and building rapport with each individual does not require mirroring their circumstances. Although it is a challenge to see the individual perspective and needs of a population so diverse, it is a skill of paramount importance as a duty to patients, I believe. It also highlighted the idea of doctors setting an example to their patients in leading a healthy lifestyle, a debate I often sit on the fence about in regards to respect for a doctor’s autonomy in their health decisions as a person outside of their profession, as well as a patient’s.
I feel that this piece resonates with me due to the fact that I personally see myself as a strongly empathetic person, however fear that as my medical degree and eventually profession continues, I will encounter situations where my empathy is not enough. There will be cases where the patient knows that there is no way that I can know how they feel, and i think that this art piece and the accompanying text shows this well. I think it also shows that being a doctor is more than what the public sees in that behind the scenes there are many different levels of emotion involved in trying to understand how a patient feels, and that it is often presumed that doctors can simply put themselves in a patient’s shoes due to knowing about the illness.
I felt strongly attracted to this artwork for many reasons. It demonstrates a very complex problem within healthcare, can we ever truly be fully empathetic? or do we need to have lived examples in order to relate to patients? As a young white male, I acknowledge that I have experienced life differently to many others, for example, an older black woman. Although we all will have different life experiences, it is important to provide equal opportunities for all, and be able to strive for the almost impossible task of being fully empathetic in every case. I think this artwork clearly demonstrates the artistic side of medicine. Although most of our medical degree is based on theory, there are many things that cannot be taught with a textbook. One of these being empathy. The artwork and its description clearly show that as doctors, we will never be able to relate fully to a specific case, or even at all. It highlights the adaptability doctors must learn to possess to provide equal care and to be empathetic towards their patients. Although I already see myself as a highly empathetic person, I believe a part of studying medicine and becoming a doctor is perfecting the art of medicine, in this case empathy, as well as all the theory that comes with it. Overall, the piece is very simplistic but highlights a very important topic within medicine, and that is the main reason why I was drawn to it.
I really enjoyed studying this piece and found it to be thought-provoking. Many of us as first-year medical students will remember that not too long ago we were preparing for our medical school interviews, trying to convince our interviewers that we were empathetic, compassionate individuals, who knew how to build rapport with patients. Though we would have been able to describe situations in which we had shown empathy, I feel that this piece demonstrates that in certain situations, you never fully realise what it is like to be in someone else’s shoes, and so it is impossible to be truly empathetic. Whilst this seems like a pessimistic view, I still believe that there are ways of overcoming this challenge and connecting with patients who you are dissimilar to. I think this piece also highlights the importance of studying medically diverse populations in the curriculum, as this allows us to better understand the factors which influence the health of our patients, and in doing so allows us to build a better rapport with patients.
This piece really struck me as it portrays the hardships of truly being empathetic and how it is easier said than done. As medical students we are taught to emphasize with patients and try to imagine what they are going through as that is the best way to truly understand and treat the patients; however, it is impossible to truly embody these patients and understand what they are going through via their minds. Nevertheless, this is still expected of medical professionals. It is portrayed in this piece that it is impossible to understand peoples hardships if they come from different backgrounds; however, I disagree a little as experience as well as the effects of globalization and being aware of things globally more than ever before, medical professionals are becoming more equipped to understand for example the hardships of a refugee patient who has fled the war.
I feel that this piece resonates with me and expresses a complex issue within healthcare, which is the problem of empathy as doctors. Doctors are expected to build good relationships with their patients and be able to comfort and help them through their hardships and a large way this is done is through empathy – putting yourself in the patients shoes and the ability to understand and share their feelings. However trying to understand patient situations and truly understanding by having lived through something similar yourself are 2 very different things. Throughout my degree and future profession, the skill of putting yourself in another’s shoes is one that will develop and be honed as I experience more and more, however I will only ever have my own life experiences and I will only ever be able to truly understand things that I’ve lived through. However this is not to say that just because I cannot live through every patient experience, that I cannot display empathy. The ‘empathetic doctor’ can do this, they can adapt and learn with each patient and though it is described in the piece as ‘impossible’, it is not and doctors worldwide work to achieve this.