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Now and then we some across views about commercialism, profiteering and the much required empathy in the medical services. Be it doctors or others including such incidents hog the limelight through protests by relatives and others.
Whereas the noble profession is believed to have a in-built factor like the behaviors of the doctor that instils more cure than the medications.
Even a smile from a doctor acts as a synergy and more palliative than administration of dugs.
We went through several reports based on studies where it was found that, there is a gradual decline in the empathy factors in a doctor that leads to premature end of patients.
A lack of empathy in healthcare can be disastrous. In the UK, between 2005 and 2009, hundreds of avoidable deaths occurred at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. The Francis report, which investigated the causes of the failings, concluded that a lack of empathy contributed to the catastrophe.
More recently, dozens of tragic, unnecessary infant and maternal deaths occurred at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals. The Ockenden Report, which investigated the causes of these deaths, stated that lack of empathy exacerbated the problem.
Meanwhile, research suggests empathy in doctors may even reduce premature death in patients with type 2 diabetes.
Empathy is a core skill that medical students require. The General Medical Council, which sets the standards and outcomes for medical student education and training in the UK, says that empathy is central to their strategy.
However, a “hidden curriculum” in medical school can reduce medical student empathy. A new study, published in BMC Medical Education, is the first to systematically demonstrate why empathy declines during medical training and raises important questions about the priorities of current medical education.
Empathy is known to reduce patient pain and improve their satisfaction with care, and protects against doctor burnout. It’s also cost-effective according to a study that compared longer, empathic consultations with standard consultations.
Based on its importance, you might hope that empathy increases throughout medical school. Yet levels of empathy in medical students often decline as their training progresses.
In a recently published systematic review, my colleagues and I analyzed data from 16 qualitative studies and 771 medical students. Our review included any qualitative study that investigated why empathy might change during medical school.
We found that when medical students transition from the first phase of medical school which is mostly lecture-based, to the second phase of medical school which is more clinical and patient-facing, they are met with a “hidden” informal curriculum .
