I know this is a deviation from the COVID series, and the second part will up soon, but after a conversation over some beers with another medical student (don't worry, we socially distanced, I promise) I think this would be a fun topic to dive into. Empathy is a such an overused term. Everything we do in schooling says, "make sure you show empathy for your patients," or "wow that response wasn't very empathetic to their feelings," and it's such a strange thing. On one hand, they tell you not to be too close to your patients, you can't become attached and deal with the emotional pain of losing all of these people, but on the other hand you have to show you care, and be a good human. I think this line is part of what turns us into charming little sociopathic assholes to be quite frank. You have to have a certain dichotomy between caring, and not caring too much, what type of sense does that make? Humans are complex, our emotional patterns, and thought patterns are what make us such a unique species. We don't possess the ability to turn on and turn off emotions, yet for some reason healthcare tells you that you have to learn that. So what's the proper way to show empathy? Helluva question, I don't know, I'm not practicing yet, but I do have some ideas that could help. I'd love to hear suggestions, or comments if you have them as well.

The biggest thing I find that causes problems, is just the sheer basic skill of LISTENING. In this day and age, it seems we're all so caught up in moving from one thing to the next, rarely do we find time to just take a step back, and speculate. Perspective is everything in my opinion, we need to have the ability to look at situations in different points of view, gather a more complete picture, and then use that to formulate our thoughts and opinions. They tell us to "show positive body language, nod your head, show your listening," but you shouldn't have to stage that. To genuinely form a connection to a patient, you should, I don't know, GENUINELY CARE. It's not hard to listen to someone, that sometimes is the biggest thing they need. Let's face it, everybody copes in different ways, some like to be alone, others like to vent, some like to channel that energy into something such as working out or sports. However, as physicians, when a patient comes into your office, you need to remember that most of these people don't know what's happening to their body, it's just not working like it normally does. They are scared, confused, and all kinds of nervous, they don't understand the medical jargon you're throwing at them, and they're too frightened to ask questions. It's a very easy fix, actually listen, don't go in and out of patient's rooms to increase your billable rates, just sit there, explain things to them in terms they understand. This interaction is fundamental into building a trusting physician-patient relationship, you will get a more honest history, and you can provide a better quality of care, everybody wins in this scenario.

Becoming a physician is a grueling task. Did you know 27% of medical students show signs of depression? Out of that 27%, only 15% seek treatment, and 11.1% have suicidal ideologies. It doesn't get better once you become a physician either, 74% of medical residents show signs of burnout. That's ridiculous, not to mention suicide rates of physicians are 1.41x higher than the average male population, and 2.27x higher than the general female population. It's estimated that 300 physicians die by suicide each year. With these factors involved, it's easy to see how it's hard to show empathy when the care providers are struggling themselves. The system chews you up and spits you out, so it's harder to show the signs of empathy and care that health care providers should. There's no easy fix to that problem either, the system (as terrible as it is) has been in place so long, and it's not looking like there's much of a sign of change. The best hope so far is that residents in this generation move into positions of power, and try to end the culture of "bullying" so to speak when they get a batch of residents. The ideology of I suffered, so you should too is completely outdated, we're not only putting our future doctors in trouble, but it bleeds over into patient care as well.

I believe empathy is how you define it. You can show you care, listen, echo concerns, but at the end of the day you're human as well. We each have our own individual problems going on, and it's natural to be focused more on ourselves than others all the time. Generally speaking, when we vent, when we listen, whenever anything happens, nobody truly gives a shit. That moment is forgotten after the talk until it's brought up again, and that's okay, because everybody has problems. When people say "somebody has it worse than you," I don't think we should take that as making our own struggles and feelings inadequate. Yes, somebody does have it worse than you, but that doesn't make your own thoughts and emotions as insignificant. We should take that point as perspective only, we can cope with our emotions, but still acknowledge there are fundamentally terrible things going on in the universe. It doesn't make the issues you deal with any less important, but it does give you a mindset of how to approach difficult tasks mentally, and grow from it. Empathy to me is being able to understand how a particular issue is affecting a particular person. That person is putting in the trust, effort, and time to talk to you about something that is worrying, bothering, etc. them. At the very least, we can sit there, listen to what's happening, and help them grow from the experience. Empathy will never be black and white, as all humans have different reactions, and different emotions. It's what keeps us human, but we can show basic fundamental skills in order to help another person.

At the end of the day, the way you handle your interactions is a choice you take. It's the path that makes the most sense to you mentally, sometimes it's hard to show empathy when someone else's problems seen so insignificant. However, we must remember that we're all human. Do you best to be kind, to be take care of people that are important to you. We've all had losses throughout our lives, and we're going to continue to lose people. However, we do partly control whether that relationship is a positive or a negative. It's not possible to be an altruistic human 100% of the time, don't get me wrong, I understand that, but what we can do is do our best to push the needle forward. If we aren't advancing and improving each day, no matter the circumstances, what are we really doing then?