Every clinical encounter is an opportunity to generate social capital. Even in situations where patient needs are complex or seemingly insurmountable, it is the empathy and goodwill which makes the difference.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
What we need in medical schools is not to teach empathy, as much as to preserve it - the process of learning huge volumes of information about disease, of learning a specialized language, can ironically make one lose sight of the patient one came to serve; empathy can be replaced by cynicism.
A prerequisite to empathy is simply paying attention to the person in pain.
Empathy is a tool for building people into groups, for allowing us to function as more than self-obsessed individuals.
Empathy is the starting point for creating a community and taking action. It's the impetus for creating change.
Empathy is the faculty to resonate with the feelings of others. When we meet someone who is joyful, we smile. When we witness someone in pain, we suffer in resonance with his or her suffering.
If a person is treated like a patient, they are apt to act like one.
Cancer is a growth hormone for empathy, and empathy makes us useful to each other in ways we were not, could not have been, before.
My natural mother passed away from cystic fibrosis when I was a toddler, so I feel a great deal of empathy for people who are struggling with disease.
Patients have the right to help themselves.
The work of a psychotherapist involves being empathic and insightful with one's patients without getting too lost in their painful stories to be helpful.
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