Study: Doctors provide little, if any, empathy towards patients
Patient Safety Monitor Alert
September 24, 2008
In a recent study, researchers recorded 10 patients and their doctors and then analyzed those conversations to determine whether the physicians empathized with patients who have deadly illnesses, reports The Boston Globe. The study, conducted at Veterans Affairs hospital in Houston, determined that doctors only express signs of empathy 10% of the time.
In another study in which researchers recorded and documented a word-by-word analysis between doctors and patients, doctors expressed signs of empathy 39 out of 384 times.
These studies demonstrate how doctors do not understand the emotional difficulties of their patients, says Diane Morse, MD, from the University of Rochester (NY) Medical Center.
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