Hi Giuliana,

Everything you need to participate is provided. Email the Efficacy Report on completion to [email protected] Thank you :)

Dear Giuliana,

I think that empathy is crucial in health professions and in interpersonal relationships in general.

I hope this articles may help you. Good luck for your work!

J Dent Educ. 2013 Aug;77(8):1006-12.

Early performance in a humanistic medicine course as a predictor of dental students' later clinical performance.

Nelson LP1, Maramaldi P, Kinnunen TH, Kalenderian E.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23929570

J Dent Educ. 2005 Mar;69(3):338-45.

Measurement of changes in empathy during dental school.

Sherman JJ1, Cramer A.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15749944

thank you for those interesting links

Thank you Laura. I just had find the second one among others.

Have a nice day.

Best regards

Giuliana

Hi Giuliana

I agree that empathy and compassion are crucial for a pain specialist. But consider that any professional, while rendering a service, needs to behave professionally. As such, this means that any interactions with patients or clients needs to come from a rational and reasonable perspective, always with an educated understanding of the potential impact of any communication or therapy. This means that a professional does not directly or openly express her feelings or interpersonal affection in any overt or verbal way without first considering the result. One can use those feelings as motivation or criteria as part of a reasoned response. Any overt display of feelings or emotions would only be selected when consideration of the overall situation determines that the client will benefit from this type of interaction.

Any use of your ability to give comfort, sympathy or emotional support would occur only for the needs of the patient and only after a reasonable (and possibly documented) determination that the patient is comfortable and accepting of these interactions. Much care must also be given to defining the limits of the interpersonal relationship that will inevitably form when such highly intimate connections occur. An understanding as to the extent that interactions of this type are recognized to be part of the therapy and whether any continuation of that connection outside the therapy is accepted or suggested.

Your recognition of this question and the courage to ask it shows you feel a high level of caring and identification with the issues that your clients might face. By widening your field of empathy and compassion to address the needs of all of your patients, past present and future, for you to be the most professional you can be, the level of caring and intimacy that you can safely use with your current patient will become obvious, like a natural knowledge of what is best. Be confident that you can find the way to help each one to the best of your ability. 

Best Regards

Frank

Empathy is different from compassion, sensitiveness and sympathy.

One of the mostly used definitions of Physician Empathy (PE) is that of Mercer and Reynolds. They took, on the other hand, an integrative approach to defining empathy, considering it both a multidimensional and skills-based construct. They describe four components of a multidimensional conception of the empathy construct based on an extensive review of literature conducted by Morse et al. These include the following:

"Emotive: The ability to subjectively experience and share in another’s psychological state or intrinsic feelings.

Moral: An internal altruistic force that motivates the practice of empathy;

Cognitive: The helper’s intellectual ability to identify and understand another person’s feelings and perspective from an objective stance;

Behavioural: Communicative response to convey understanding of another’s perspective.” 

By taking this multidimensional approach, Mercer and Reynolds intentionally distance themselves from the purely emotional aspect usually associated with the term empathy. At the same time, they use Morse’s concept of empathy to delimit it from the term “sympathy”, which implies strong emotional involvement in the needs and concerns of the patient and, for this reason, is often seen as a danger by medical personnel. By contrast, Mercer and Reynolds define empathy more as a learnable, professional (communication) skill and less as a purely subjective emotional experience or an innate, unalterable personality trait. 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3296095/

Physician empathy: definition, outcome-relevance and its measurement in patient care and medical education.

Neumann M, Scheffer C, Tauschel D, Lutz G, Wirtz M, Edelhäuser F.

GMS Z Med Ausbild. 2012;29(1):Doc11. doi: 10.3205/zma000781. Epub 2012 Feb 15. English, German.

Dear Frank:

Thanks for your comment. I agree that all health care professionals should have professionalism, however not all my students have empathy or compassion as a innate ability and it is needed to treat patients with chronic pain and I think any kind of patient. I do not think it depends on the case, but it must always be present...it is not about showing feelings to your patients and put in risk the relationship out of the clinic. Is to be able to give a safe space where the patient can express himself and listen to understand their suffering (empathy), and make decisions accoridng to that in an effort to try to alleviate them (compassion).

That is why I am looking for intervention to créate or improve this ability among students.

Best regards!

Dear Laura:

Thanks again. I will read the study, sounds very interesting. I have read many books and have seen similar dimensions describe but not that clear. I know the difference among terms, however when looking after studies for the SR, not all authors make it clear and use interventon to improve empathy, compassion, emotional intelligence, among others. Sympathy is usually not considered for the fact that you mentioned.

Thank you.

It was my pleasure Giuliana! Thank you for your interesting question.