Watch this Wonderful Video: "Empathy: The Human Connection to Patient Care"

Empathy is an essential element of quality health care. This video (Empathy: The Human Connection to Patient Care) simply, and beautifully, illustrates the value of seeking to understand others' experience. Listening, noticing, exploring and responding helps us to build healing connections with patients, family members and  caregivers. Empathy also helps those of us who are privileged to work in health care settings to know and support each other.

The video was published on YouTube on February 27, 2013 with the following information:

Patient care is more than just healing -- it's building a connection that encompasses mind, body and soul.

If you could stand in someone else's shoes . . . hear what they hear. See what they see. Feel what they feel. Would you treat them differently?

CEO Toby Cosgrove, MD, shared this video, titled "Empathy," with the Cleveland Clinic staff during his 2012 State of the Clinic address on Feb. 27, 2013.

 

The Empowered Patient - Shared Decision Making: Should I Have a Stem Cell Transplant?

In my The Empowered Patient column in the January 15th issue of  MPNforum, I provide some thoughts about the difficult decision that people with myelofibrosis face regarding having a hematopoietic stem cell transplant. See: The Empowered Patient - Stem Cell Transplant

It's Not Too Late to Make New Year's Resolutions

Just because it is already January 10th doesn't mean it is too late for New Year's Resolutions. See the link below to my Empowered Patient columnin the MPNforum for some ideas about how to make your New Year healthier.
http://mpnforum.com/michael-dec-17/

New Look for 2013

For the New Year, I changed the template for EmpathyWorks. I think it is a cleaner and more readable look. Let me know what you think.

Happy New Year!

Michael

New Research Suggests Empathy and Analytic Thinking are Mutually Exclusive

Recent research utilizing functional MRI suggests that the circuits of the brain that are activated during analytic tasks are actually inhibited when people are engaged in social tasks,  and vice versa.

So, for example, when people are engaged in tasks that stimulate the centers of the brain associated with analytic problem solving, pathways activated during tasks that evoke empathic understanding are inhibited. The results, published online in the neuroimaging journal, NeuroImage, in October, 2012, were  summarized in an artilce that appeared on Medical News Today  - http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/252241.php

These interesting findings shed light on the neural processes invovled in analytic and social tasks and suggest that empathic thinking and analytic thinking may be mutually exclusive. No wonder it is hard for us to consider the experience and feelings of others when we are deeply engaged in analytic problem solving. This also may explain why many health care providers miss opportunities to respond to patients' emotions when they are "conducting a history" and engaging in diagnostic reasoning and treatment planning.

From a healthcare professional training perspective, these research findings suggest that clinicians need to learn how to compensate for the inhibition of the social circuitry that occurs when they enage in analytic tasks. Helping clinicians to actively "tune in" to patients' emotional state may help "turn down" their analytic thinking and allow them to respond more effectively to patients' psychosocial needs.

Empathy Works for Business Too!

See the link below for an article on the value of empathy in the workplace that appeared in the online magazine Smart Business.

The importance of empathy in the workplace | Smart Business

The Great American Smokeout - An Empathic Opportunity

Though any time is a good time to quit smoking,  November 15, 2012 is the 37th annual Great American Smokeout, or GASO, a day when hundreds of thousands of smokers will try to stay cigarette free.

Tobacco use remains the single largest preventable cause of death and disease in the United States, with approximately 443,000 U.S. adults dying from smoking-related illnesses each year!

 

The good news is that stopping smoking will provide some immediate health benefits. For example, your risk for having a stroke, heart attack or other cardiovascular event are reduced dramatically as soon as you quit smoking. Moreover, the risks of developing a smoking-associated cancer or other tobacco use-related condition also diminish over time.

 

Even if you don't smoke, someone you love may be a smoker and might benefit from quitting smoking during the GASO, or as a New Year's resolution, or any time!

 

So, what does this have to do with empathy and why am I writing about the Great American Smokeout here? 

 

Well, I can't help myself. As a physician, I have seen the ravaging effects that smoking has had on my patients and those who love them. As an educator, I have spent a good part of my career trying to help caring clinicians feel more prepared and confident about assisting their patients who smoke. And as a researcher,  I know that even a small dose of clinician empathy and a little advice and support improves smoking cessation outcomes.

 

So, if you are a smoker, take this opportunity to think about quitting. If you love a smoker, tell them you care about them and want to support them in their efforts to stay healthy. If you are a clinician, ask your patients who smoke if you can help them address their smoking.

 

The good news is that many forms of effective smoking cessation treatment, including medication, counseling and support, are now readily available:

• Medications reduce symptoms of nicotine withdrawal and improve rates of quitting. Some nicotine replacement therapies (e.g., patch, gum, lozenge) are available over-the-counter while others (i.e., nicotine inhaler and spray; bupropion; varenicline) are available by prescription;
• Behavioral counseling, alone or when provided with medication, improves quit rates. Counseling is provided in individual and group formats and also via free state-supported telephone quit lines; and
• Online quit programs and mobile aps also show great promise.

For quitting resources and more on the Great American Smokeout, go to the American Cancer Society page at: http://www.cancer.org/healthy/stayawayfromtobacco/greatamericansmokeout/index

For a wonderful Youtube video by Dr. Mike Evans on how to quit smoking see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0zvG2vSjrA&feature=share&list=PL9FF73EC555CB6855

And for addition quitting resources see the National Cancer Institute site at: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/tobacco/smoking