Comments on: Can We Teach Empathy?

By: Beryl

Beryl — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 20:24:05 +0000

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By: AKO Webmail

AKO Webmail — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 03:59:22 +0000

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By: leo borrell

leo borrell — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 02:17:02 +0000

we only need to provide the proper condition but cannot teach or gurnatee the development of empathy.

we will be able as transference to make use of it .We facilitate this process best with medical students and resident to develop and appreciate their humanity and their meaningful relationships.Thsi will when their teachers and other analyze their narcissim and acknowledge their conflicts of interest that influnce their decision and tradition for the pas t 100year to abuse seduce and demand that to be good doctors t they must work more the 40-50 hr s aweek.

When this occurs they willhave a balance life as they work only 40-50hrs.

this will lead to a labor of love in real life an pursue meaningful relations

They wil be allow them to love and grow and be comfortable and experience appropriate intimacy with their partners,children parents friends and ,their paitents

this will allow a an unconflicted pursuit of idealism rather than narcisstic pursuitsof their mentors narcissistic approval

By: Nancy T. Block, M.D.

Nancy T. Block, M.D. — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 21:57:14 +0000

I was hoping to print out your blog, with comments, above, to pass on to a group of medical students for whom I will be acting as preceptor tomorrow AM, in a patient interview practicum, similar to the ones you have referred to above. However, I am unable to print out more that the first page with the heading “Can We Teach Empathy?”

Do you have any simple suggestions? I am at the “high end” agewise, and struggle with any but the simplest computer operations!

I have seen your blog before, and once replied in support of your appeal to the President to send official condolences to families of psychiatrically wounded warriors who succumb to suicide.

Nancy T. Block, M.D. Berkeley Heights, NJ

By: 60,000 Empathic Responses - PsychiatryTalk

60,000 Empathic Responses - PsychiatryTalk — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 21:22:43 +0000

[...] a recent blog I wrote about empathy and how we might try to teach medical students to be empathic physicians. [...]

By: college scholarships

college scholarships — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 14:11:51 +0000

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By: Michael Greene

Michael Greene — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 01:44:13 +0000

I had the following experience about 10 years ago when I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. I had had a biopsy at a major urban teaching hospital and was called in to see the urologist without any indication that anything was wrong. He kept me waiting nearly two hours until nearly all the other patients were gone. I was so annoyed at the wait that I started to leave. When he was told I was leaving he called me in, and he also brought in about 4 young doctors or medical students whom he did not introduce. Then he told me I had a tumor, and I surmised I had been detained for the students’ sake so they could learn from him how to give such a diagnosis. But the doc was terrible. He immediately got into the details of tumor growth and Gleason scores. I did not follow his quick presentation and made him go through it slowly, asking lots of questions but showing little emotion (since I was surprised and disbelieving, and very annoyed that the students were there). None of the students said a word, and the doc’s only message was that I should undergo surgery within 6 weeks, which turned out to be definitely wrong. Finally I asked him to send the slides to two other labs for confirmation and left. My strongest emotion at that moment was anger that he had brought those students in, presumably to view patient distress, not physician’s empathy. It might not be very productive to require some of the present medical faculty to teach empathy.

By: Jay Lefer,M.D.

Jay Lefer,M.D. — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 15:51:40 +0000

The medical school faculty who do interviews need to be chosen who possess empathy. Usually they do research, are only empathic when they are performing for others, some are sadistic. Research at Columbia Psychoanalytic revealed that interviewers select those who mirror themselves. No wonder we have non-empathic doctors.

By: Elizabeth Ronis

Elizabeth Ronis — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 13:21:01 +0000

I think empathy derives either from very empathic parenting or from personal trauma, deprivation or suffering and from being very much in touch with feelings. If candidates are accepted based only on their intellectual and scholastic achievements and are emotionally not there, perhaps psychiatry is not the right specialty.