Category: empathy

20 signs you are an Empathetic Doctor:

empathy1

 Image courtesy: pixabay.com

 

Empathy is an important  part of medical profession.  It is the ability to understand other people’s experiences, emotions, and feelings.

20 signs you are an Empathetic Doctor:

  1.  You understand the emotional state of the patient
  2.  You effectively communicate to the patient that you understand the  situation.  This improves the quality of the patient’s experience and the outcome of the treatment.
  3.  Empathy is directly related to clinical competence. You are happy and satisfied with your professional life.  You have not complained of stress or burnout.
  4.  You are a doctor of a developing country and often refuse to take professional fee from underprivileged patients.
  5.  You have worked in primary health centres in remote villages and in refugee camps.
  6.  You have performed more than 1000 autopsies. You are familiar with the emotions that a doctor normally experiences after the death of a patient. You  effectively give professional  support to bereaved families.
  7. You often volunteer to do night duty for your unwell colleague. Your colleagues respect you and know that they can depend on you at time of crisis.
  8.  You often donate blood as part of donation camp.
  9.  You are not in the profession to earn money but to help the sick people. This gives you tremendous sense of achievement.
  10.  When you fall sick, you don’t complain. You try your best to take minimum sick leave.
  11.   You don’t need to think twice when it is a choice between buying an expensive gift for yourself or making a huge donation for the cancer fund in your country.
  12.  Instead of selling your old computer and cell phone, you have given them as  gifts to those who cannot afford to buy them.
  13.  There are slums in various parts of your country. You spent time with slum dwellers and have listened to their sad stories with compassion. You have tried your best to help them with medicines and free medical advice.
  14.  You have many free educational websites for medical students who cannot afford to buy books.
  15.  You always give jobs to married women with grown up children. They need more money to support a family and cannot afford to take holiday from work.
  16.  You often raise your voice against rape and sexual exploitation of women at work.
  17.  You are actively involved in organisations  dealing with autism and Alzheimer’s disease.
  18.  Empathy and compassion runs in your family. You are lucky to have been born in a family of givers. You have seen your parents giving generous donation to the poor and providing shelter and employment to many helpless people.
  19.  You are a global traveller which helped you to develop humility and compassion.
  20.  You are actively providing support and psychological councelling to peers and  juniors  addicted to drugs and alcohol. Learning to respond to distress with  empathy is a critical task which is associated with positive health outcome and personal achievement.