Humanism is the foundation of medicine. This sacred art is altruistic at its core and those drawn to the field of medicine are among the most caring and empathetic people I’ve had the privilege to meet.
A number of longitudinal studies of physicians show that their empathy is at its peak in the early days of medical school and that they become steadily less empathetic with more clinical training. In my view, a successful doctor must combine empathy with problem-solving or in other words, heart with mind, so arresting this decline is of great importance if the desire is to have a balanced health care system.
A doctor working strictly with the physical body must exercise at least a cognitive (as opposed to affective or emotional) empathy, while doctors working with the more subtle and likely more important energetic nature of the body must work with the more difficult to master forms of empathy (i.e. affective or emotional).
Empathy affords the practitioner two powerful healing tools: intercession and atonement. The former, in simple terms, is the ability to help another to minimize the energetic repercussions of bad choices and the latter is the ability to take an “imprint” of another’s energetic pattern, lift it up and give a perfect template back to them.
Empathy of any type is clouded by judgment. Moreover, the more pure of heart you are, the more finely tuned your empathy will be. Empathy is the core of the humanistic nature of medicine. Energy precedes form, therefore, a good practitioner always applies empathy before launching into problem solving.
Gregory Hake 
The empathetic heart knows no limits to its ability to be of help. It is ready and willing to do what is necessary and go the extra mile without quibble or complaint.
Ther are wonderful people in the world, but when you stand in the presence of empathy, you stand before greatness for these people hold the power of true change in their hands. The sacred art of healing revolves around those two factors you mention, and we are ever so fortunate to experience this virtuous gift. It occurs in the selfless acts of kindness that are shared in the unexpected moments of our lives and the kind attention placed to our troubles by a deeply caring soul. We all need to be more understanding and perhaps some of this will rub off in the halls of medicine today if each of us contribute meaningfully by giving empathy to our own worlds.
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Who would have ever thought… less is more powerful!
True healers are a blessing however, such service of intersession and atonement need not only apply to doctors or practitioners, the same opportunity is present and available for any and all who would let it be so!
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Interesting to understand when the altruism begins to wane. It is the tail wagging the dog. I’ve read that when a doctor becomes a patient their entire perspective changes. Realizing the “first do no harm” starts with the state of my own heart is sobering and makes perfect sense. Human beings are so powerful.
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Medicine has been moving steadily down the path of dehumanization for a while now, and it is not helped by the time crunch that many doctors feel they have. They tend to just look at first appearances, medicate the symptoms, and say “come back if that doesn’t fix it or if you notice anything strange”.
The practice of medicine should not be a one-size-fits-all approach. The word empathy really sums up nicely the range of practice, thought, and feeling that should be a central component of every doctor’s consultation. You can see why doctors that have been practicing for a long time might have less empathy than a newly minted doctor. A sign or symptom that a new doctor might have to research, a veteran doctor has seen many times.
Medicine is (or should be) such a subtle art, that an arrogant or egotistical approach really kills any edge that empathy might have given.
While our society spends so much time talking and thinking about the changes that need to happen in our broken healthcare system, most of the arguments revolve around money. Money is surely needed for healthcare, but throwing money at a broken system is just putting your finger in the dam.
We as individuals and also as a group need to do some soul searching to see whether we need to fundamentally change the idea of healthcare as a whole. Just like a doctor will tell you that a band-aid won’t help with cancer, we need to make sure the fix for our healthcare system is in the same scale as the problem.
Teaching new doctors the importance of empathy in their practices would have the same effect as changing the energy systems in the body. The input might seem small, but the final effect will be huge.
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Thank you for your words on how to humanize medicine. I love your further meditation on empathy in regards to intercession and and atonement. I can see how your post can provide intercession and atonement for the whole field of medicine itself. Your words place a stake in how medicine can be revived to its true altuistic way.
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This really applies to all interactions between people. Seeing each other as individuals not as the basis for the interaction. We are energetic beings that broadcast VERY loudly the state of our own heart. Great post, thank you!
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Empathy is a natural characteristic, and empathy for the physical woes of another is likely to be a strong motivator for many. Unfortunately, empathy typically turns to sympathy, or else the distinctions are not seen. Sympathy not only perceives but identifies with the ill characteristic in another, and that is, of course, damaging. Doctors, nurses and others simply can’t absorb that secondary damage for long, and therefore empathy wanes, partly out of self defense.
Understanding this ditinction between vital empathy and dangerous sympathy is very close to the core of what it means to function effectively as a health practitioner…or a manager…or a friend. Thanks for your clear articulation!
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This is a good reminder, even for those of us who are not practitioners of the importance of empathy – being able to understand the experiences, thoughts and attitudes of other people – in order to help them.
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