Nurture the Motives that Brought you to Medicine

Learning how to communicate effectively with patients is an important part of every physician's training. Physician educators are often challenged to decide how to teach "empathy" and great deal of research and study has gone into helping new physicians learn the proper techniques. After a recent and lengthy discussion thread on this topic on a medical education listserv, Ms. Barbara Packer cut through all the rhetoric to get to the heart of the matter. - Linda Rowe Barbara Packer's message to physicians. July 8, 2014: Before any of you learned or taught “med-speak,” you had another language which hopefully included how to respond to people around you who might have experienced joy or pain. I think if you can impress upon your students the fact that each patient is a unique human being and that they need to meet each one of us with their humanity, this might not be as complicated as it appears. You don’t need to prove you have been in my shoes in order for you to let me know you care that my walk is burdened, and that you want to help me relieve that burden. We patients know when physicians are authentic and when they are not. So a little more nurturing of the motives that brought students to medicine might be in order. Best, Barbara Barbara Packer Senior V.P./COO The Arnold P. Gold Foundation www.humanism-in-medicine.org Working to keep the CARE in healthcare!