Thus, it is possible for a physician to be perceived as nonempathic when in actuality, she feels empathy but is unable to express it. In everyday life, people who are poor communicators and cannot adequately express their feelings are misunderstood by people around them. It is also important that the physician possess sufficient communication skills to convey the feeling she is experiencing to the patient. The physician who understands each patient on a personal level stands a far better chance of experiencing and conveying empathy and treating the patient and illness effectively than the physician who does not have that level of understanding. This result is especially relevant for practicing physicians, for it indicates that it is not enough to know a large amount of factual information about a patient. While this is not surprising, it is interesting to note that the greater accuracy was correlated with a higher quality of shared information rather than a greater quantity of information. Researchers have found that male friends have higher empathic accuracy than male strangers. There is more to empathic understanding than simply knowing and evaluating objective information about a patient, however. Without understanding the nature and circumstances of the patient's emotional state, it may be difficult for the physician to generate an empathic response. Due to the conflicting associations with death, the physician may feel confused because he does not understand the basis of the patient's sorrow.
In a different situation, the physician may have a dissimilar cultural background in which death is not associated with sadness but with joy and celebration of the deceased's life. In both of these situations, he may be able to respond empathically because he understands and can relate to the patient's current grief.
Alternatively, he may not have experienced death in his family but may understand the emotional response to death in the patient's culture. This may cause the physician to recall subconsciously his emotional state during a similar situation in which a close relative died. For example, a physician may encounter a patient who appears depressed, expresses feelings of sadness and informs the physician that a close relative has recently passed away. During the initial phase of the process, the observer must not only identify but also understand the basis of the subject's feelings.
In order to be perceived as empathic, the observer must convey this understanding to the subject. What is Empathy?Įmpathy is an emotional experience between an observer and a subject in which the observer, based on visual and auditory cues, identifies and transiently experiences the subject's emotional state. This article explores the concept of empathy and examines its utility in medicine from the perspective of a medical student. The applications of empathy are widespread, and are especially relevant in fields such as medicine, where the successful treatment of patients depends on effective patient-physician interactions. Sympathy is a statement of emotional concern while empathy is a reflection of emotional understanding. Sympathy and empathy, commonly confused with each other, are not the same. Throughout medical school, my instructors stressed the importance of empathy, generally defined as the understanding of and identification with another person's emotional state.
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