In her memoir, "Healing," Theresa Brown recalls what she learned from her own treatment for breast cancer.
...A caregiver receiving care suddenly understands an essential truth — empathy is essential to alleviating suffering. "I had not understood that indifference can become a form of cruelty when one's life could be at stake." Unfortunately, Brown writes, "you can't bill for empathy."
The American health care system, in which each test, exam and drug are separate opportunities for revenue — and often profit — offers no tangible incentive for patience or kindness. We should not be surprised then that this kind of humanity is all too rare in medicine. Brown never realized the depth of this deficit or how maddening it could be for patients until she found herself on the other side... nyt
...A caregiver receiving care suddenly understands an essential truth — empathy is essential to alleviating suffering. "I had not understood that indifference can become a form of cruelty when one's life could be at stake." Unfortunately, Brown writes, "you can't bill for empathy."
The American health care system, in which each test, exam and drug are separate opportunities for revenue — and often profit — offers no tangible incentive for patience or kindness. We should not be surprised then that this kind of humanity is all too rare in medicine. Brown never realized the depth of this deficit or how maddening it could be for patients until she found herself on the other side... nyt
This is such an interesting concept. We hear all the time about caregiver burnout, yet we offer no practical solution. This burnout absolutely contributes to that deadly indifference that Brown discusses, so I wonder why there aren't major systems that address it. I know that those in helping professions must have large pools of empathy to do the work they do, but everyone is human, and those pools are eventually drained. An important issue to think about, especially in those of us that find ourselves in caregiver roles with aging parents.
ReplyDelete"you can't bill for empathy." Wow.. this is a very interesting perspective that we do not always get to see!
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