by C. L. Jarm

Created on: February 06, 2009   Last Updated: February 08, 2009

Doctors, even though they need to have an objective opinion, should still be empathetic with their patients. Showing an understanding of a patients situation does not necessarily take his objectivity away.

Doctors need to be aware, not only how we feel internally or what our medicinal problems, but also how we feel about our treatment. For example, a doctor can empathize with a cancer patient and listen to them at the same time giving them the best possible treatment for their malady. Unless a doctor listens to his patient, he will not understand all that is going on. Sometimes empathizing, or putting on in another shoes, helps a person get a better perspective of the mode of treatment to be taken.This is not to say doctors should pity their patients and listen for hours to everything they have to say. If that would be the case, no one would have any health care.

Treating a patient not only involves the medicine and testing, it also involves what the patient feels is better for them. Some patients have no insurance and to put a patient through rigorous tests that actually do not need to be done would be ridiculous. The doctor needs to treat each patient individually, as all people may want a different medicinal regime. Some patients may prefer to have lengthy operations others may not. It is all dependent on what is wrong with the patient.

If a Physicians treats all his patients the same without having any feeling toward them, then he is not treating the patient. We may just as well have a robot doing the diagnostics and a computer calling us with the treatment and medications. Now maybe this will solve the problem of our health care system if it is done that way, yet not necessarily heal the patient. The purpose of having a Physician is to be healed from whatever malady we may incur and the only way to know what course is best is to have some empathy with the patient.

If Obstetricians did not empathize with their patients I doubt they would be in business long. The same goes with podiatrists, orthopedic doctors and all the other specialty doctors. Some degree of empathy must be allowed to to the patient, this is not saying he should feel the pother persons pain in such a way he himself gets ill: if that happens the physician needs a physician and not a medical one maybe a mental one. But to empathize and listen to the persons pain, adhering to their wants if possible. If not, Doctors have a great way of talking their patients into whatever they need. Remember who is paying who and for what services and all should be fine.

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