For a long time, clinical empathy was brushed aside as being far less important for practicing medicine than technical skills. But with the sudden focus on improving patient satisfaction, the real importance of empathy is also bulging through. Studies have shown an association between clinical empathy, greater patient satisfaction, and a decreased likelihood of malpractice suits. Amid these results, an increasing number of healthcare associations and insurance companies are now encouraging physicians to build a relationship with their patients, practice better communication skills, and show more empathy.
This empathy, which we often incorrectly assume to be an intrinsic trait, is in fact understood to be a cognitive attribute that could be learned with appropriate training. As a result, many hospitals, including Massachusetts General and other Harvard Teaching Hospitals, have now mandated that its residents take Empathetics, a series of online courses designed by the leading psychiatrist Helen Riess that teaches doctors the practice of empathy and how to increase patient satisfaction. The course also provides interpersonal skills training and tips on decoding emotional facial expressions.
There have also been other attempts at teaching empathy to medical professionals. Duke now requires its oncologists to take the course, “Oncotalk“, which provides training to physicians to help them better deal with difficult interactions with their patients. In recent years, similar courses have also been adapted for other specialties after studies showed that the course led to a greater trust in the doctor-patient relationship.
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Such a focus on increasing empathy has also inspired the rise of the field of Narrative Medicine, an approach that really emphasizes the value of listening to patients. Since the physician can now more easily identify the concerns that his patients have regarding their treatment, he or she can provide better care.
Such methods of teaching empathy have been proven to be very effective in improving patient satisfaction scores. In fact, in a study performed in 2012, researchers found that the residents who were randomly assigned to take the Empathetics course were providing a level of care that led to higher patient satisfaction scores compared to the residents who had not taken this course.
However, despite all the evidence that points to how much empathy training can benefit physicians and all the attempts at trying to teach empathy, there is still one concern that physicians share, and that is the lack of sufficient time to be more empathetic. But according to Helen Riess, practicing empathy will actually help the physicians by saving their time since they won’t have to go back to the patient again and again to ask small bits of information. Thus, an improvement in clinical empathy skills will not only make the patient’s interaction with his doctor much more pleasant and improve the quality of his care–it will also be an overall time-effective approach for the physician.
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