Journal of Medical & Surgical Pathology
Open Access
ISSN: 2472-4971
ISSN: 2472-4971
Ashraf Amir
Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Science, USA
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Med Surg Pathol
The care of the patient is both a science and an art. It is the competent application of science; and on the other hand it is the art of being attentively and fully present to the patient in a manner that facilitates well-being, security, treatment adherence and healing. Compassionate care is the essence of this art, it adds an element of stronger affective response and deeper awareness of the concrete reality of the patient’s experience of illness. Today we have a disease cure system, not a health care system. Too often the patient is lost or forgotten in the process of diagnosis and treatment. Our current health care system overvalues procedures at the expense of what has come to be thought of as old-fashioned medical compassion and concern. Such a system produces physicians who believe their task is to cure rather than to care. We have come to think of the body as a machine with replaceable parts.
The current depersonalization and dehumanization epidemic of healthcare often leave patients feeling like being perceived and treated as things or nonpersons or lesser persons without any warmth in human interaction. The highly technical nature of hospitals and specialist practices is bewildering. Many patients do not understand what is going on and want someone to listen to them, to make them feel less like an object. Physicians are routinely expected to ease human suffering. Compassion, literally “to suffer with,” combines empathy - the ability to understand the feelings of another-with the desire to actively alleviate that suffering. Compassion engenders trust. Trust is essential for the development of therapeutic relationships. Compassion combined with biomedical knowledge and clinical skills helps doctors to be more effective and helps patients heal.
Compassionate care can be achieved only if all members of the care team and all organizational leaders understand that such care is an essential part of patient-centered care. Providers need time to listen to patients, education in the skills of compassionate care, feedback based on measures of their performance, and leaders and systems that support their healing relationships with patients and families. To sustain compassion and prevent burnout, providers also need the opportunity to reflect, to share challenges and successes with each other, and to provide and receive support from each other. Family physicians are dedicated to treat the whole person. They treat each organ, every disease, all ages and both genders. The cornerstone of family medicine is an on-going, personal patient-physician relationship focused on integrated care. Family physicians are uniquely poised to give and receive compassion to individuals, families, and communities, they constitute an important role as vessels of compassion and as a pieces of the rich fabric that binds the human family