Compassionate-empathic physicians: Personality traits and social-organizational factors that enhance or inhibit this behavior pattern

Who Selects Obstetrics and Gynecology as a Career and Why, and What Traits Do They Possess?

“…The physicians placed the following descriptions in rank order from highest to lowest; humane to patients, has good medical knowledge and skills, is devoted to helping their patients, has a good working relationship with the staff, can research and publish, and are good at management and administration. Carmel & Glick (1996) concluded that the rank order of these attributes was in contrast to the duties needed to get promoted in academia, i.e., research, publications, administrative duties and spending less time with each patient. Therefore, the current academic "system" does not reward being a "good" doctor.…”

Is Empathy Necessary for the Practice of “Good” Medicine

“…Others have noted some undesirable consequences of physician empathy: it can decrease the success rate of procedures and lead to dependency, inefficiency, burnout (Curzer, 1993), and emotional exhaustion (Carmel & Glick, 1996, p. 1259 (though this clearly conflicts with statements made by others in the literature [Roter et al, 1997a;Thomas et al, 2007]). Empathic physicians may even be more likely to commit suicide: psychiatrists score the highest on empathy measures of all physicians but also have particularly high suicide rates, leading some to speculate that there may be a causal connection between the two (Restak, 2006, p. 103).…”

“…At times, it is conceptually identified with and at times contrasted to compassion (Carmel & Glick, 1996), caring (Stockdale & Warelow, 2000;Allmark, 1998), sympathy (Wispé, 1986;Gruen & Mendelsohn, 1986) and concern (Fox & Lief, 1963;Halpern, 2003). And as noted above, much has also been written about the nature and importance of empathy in the clinical practice of medicine.…”

“…To illustrate, one study asked 214 physicians to rank the qualities and behaviour of a "good" doctor, and found that "a humane relation to patients" was rated more highly than all other traits and abilities, including "medical knowledge and skills" and "research ability." Nevertheless, of the above 214 physicians (all from the same hospital), only 40 (19%) were identified by their fellow colleagues as "compassionate-empathic physicians" (Carmel & Glick, 1996, p. 1258. Surely the desire and motivation to be empathic is present in many of the 174 others.…”

Experiências de médicos ao comunicarem o diagnóstico da deficiência de bebês aos pais

“…As dificuldades no comportamento dos médicos, na dimensão sócio emocional do cuidado com o paciente, são reconhecidas pelo público e pela própria comunidade médica 7 . Muitos médicos têm dificuldades em lidar com suas próprias emoções como tristeza, culpa, identificação e sentimento de fracasso.…”