Daphne Nash: Empathy and the patient experience
Posted: December 1, 2012 Filed under: Healthcare, Patient experience | Tags: 4 key ingredients for creating an exceptional patient experience, anxiety, cancer, caregiver, compassion, Daphne Nash, doctor, emotional isolation, empathy, exceptional patient experience, healing, health, healthcare, Hospital Impact, ingredients, key ingredients, optimizing healing healthcare, pain, patient experience, physician, Rochester General Hospital, suffering Leave a commentEmpathy is a critical personal skill and quality necessary for optimizing healing healthcare.
Daphne Nash in her blog “Empathy & the patient experience” tells the story that is too often told, namely, the lack of empathy by a caregiver providing medical assistance who increases suffering, pain, anxiety, and emotional isolation and misses the chance to be an agent of healing.
See my blog “4 Key Ingredients for Creating an Exceptional Patient Experience” in Hospital Impact for a personal story of empathy and compassion that deeply touched my mom and I at a recent cancer treatment visit.
Caregiver Fatigue Affects Everyone
Posted: June 16, 2012 Filed under: Healthcare, Patient experience | Tags: burnout, cancer, care, care giver, caregiver, caregiver fatigue, chaplain, compassion, compassion fatigue, doctor, Doug Della Pietra, empathy, empathy fatigue, fatigue, heal, healthcare, hospital, new york, nurse, physician, rochester, Strong Memorial Hospital, University of Rochester Medical Center, URMC Leave a commentMuch is being researched and written on the subject of Physician/Nurse compassion, empathy, and care fatigue. Just a few examples on the subject from the past few months are the following:
- When Nurses Catch Compassion Fatigue, Patients Suffer
- Researcher takes on ’empathy fatigue’ in the workplace
- Association of an Educational Program in Mindful Communication With Burnout, Empathy, and Attitudes Among Primary Care Physicians
If you’re anything like me, if and when feeling fatigued, you may notice that you feel more irritable, moody, easily frustrated, less optimistic. Moreover, you may find that your ability to listen, focus, be present, give freely (without expectation of anything in return), express compassion and empathy, and the like are somewhat or even severely impaired.
As a hospital chaplain intern several years ago…
Optimizing Healing Healthcare 