March 4, 2010

Empathy....?


I'm on call tomorrow...so happy..huhu (don't be worried..am still sane)
Just something to share here; which has been in my concern for so long..
Witnessing terminal illnesses, deaths, emotional response to a loss, denials ... have been part of me since I started my medical life...more so since being in Sandakan (medical lagi...huh) Well, sometimes I do get carried away if unable to save a life; which I hoped could be saved...but as we know..life & death is beyond our knowledge & control...Allah decides all & we must accept the fate (Faith in Qada' & Qadar). "Every living soul are subjected to death" No one is immortal expect Allah.

But I'm just too sad when many of us (people who are witnessing a near-death situation, trying hard to salvage the life...just lose our EMPATHY & forget that we are resuscitating a fellow human being who is in a brink of death (or already asystole). Laughing, giggling...are this the way we are supposed to behave in facing such situations? Worse still..sometimes the dying patient's family members are just beside the bed, only hidden by curtain. Where have we lost our EMPATHY? We tend to take as "OK,IT IS JUST ANOTHER MORTALITY"....as easy as that! Let it be a terminally ill patient, a frail elderly, a young man or even a homeless human...
Some of us are even happy if a patient is issued DNR.huh (happy the patient gonna die?) Issuing DNR is not easy...the responsibility is just too huge...we are answerable to what we do later...thus issuing this has to be under careful consideration & not with the intention...DNR jak la, malas mau resus!

Friends! a death is a death ... it is not "JUST ANOTHER MORTALITY". Every death involves emotions of the deceased or the dying patient's family. More importantly, we MUST manifest our EMPATHY. Am not saying all those who are resuscitating must be fully quiet & use sign languages; but be rationale...I reckon laughing & giggling as being disrespectful to the patient & family members.



This is something I got from a website:

Sympathy emphasizes sharing distressing feelings whereas empathy does not emphasize any particular type of feeling. The listener using empathy shares (experiences) whatever feelings the talker is expressing at the moment, regardless of whether the feelings are distressing (grief, for example) or pleasant (love, for example).
Sympathy may also involve agreeing with some aspects of the other person's feelings, beliefs, etc. whereas empathy emphasizes understanding all of them with no interest in either agreeing or disagreeing.

The person using empathy tunes into the entire inner world of the other person whereas the person using sympathy typically tunes into only those aspects with which he agrees. The listener using empathy usually responds more comprehensively to the talker as compared with the listener using sympathy.

My point is...we don't have to sympathize...in fact, DO NOT SYMPHATIZE...but do EMPATHIZE. It really makes you look professional & more humane!
As a Muhasabah for me & all those who are fated to be in such situations for their entire life. Hope we all work towards being a better human being...Insya Allah.

1 comment:

Syima said...

Salam,

I enjoy reading ur blog, so forgive me for filling up ur comments box to a no. of ur entries.

Thank you for this eye opening statement ==> "Some of us are even happy if a patient is issued DNR.huh (happy the patient gonna die?) Issuing DNR is not easy...the responsibility is just too huge...we are answerable to what we do later...thus issuing this has to be under careful consideration & not with the intention...DNR jak la, malas mau resus!"

Made me realize that our duty as a doctor is always always to help in saving lives as BEST as we can, unless due to extreme end of age with multiple comorbidities and poor disease prognosis where we deem active resusc will just prolong death and suffering.

Being a Medical MO, I frequently am faced with this challenge of issuing active vs. DNR, esp. after explaining the disease, complications and prognosis, options of treatment : active vs. DNR, family just ended up telling me, "I dunno Dr, buatlah yg terbaik!" Camne tu?

BTW, being empathic = putting ourselves in the patient/relatives' shoes. A quality which differentiates a unique doctor from an ordinary one. Thank you for this enlightening article.