Cargando…
Empathy as a silent art–A doctor´s daily balancing act: A qualitative study of senior doctors’ experiences of empathy
Empathy in the doctor-patient relationship is of great importance and has long been considered a true professional virtue for doctors. Despite the general agreement concerning the importance of empathy, there is no consensus regarding the definition of empathy in medical research. While several quan...
Autores principales: | , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2022
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9754163/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36520784 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0277474 |
_version_ | 1784851122463178752 |
---|---|
author | von Knorring, Johanna Lehti, Arja Fahlström, Martin Semb, Olof |
author_facet | von Knorring, Johanna Lehti, Arja Fahlström, Martin Semb, Olof |
author_sort | von Knorring, Johanna |
collection | PubMed |
description | Empathy in the doctor-patient relationship is of great importance and has long been considered a true professional virtue for doctors. Despite the general agreement concerning the importance of empathy, there is no consensus regarding the definition of empathy in medical research. While several quantitative studies, measuring empathy as an individual trait, show a decline in empathy among medical students, other studies have shown that empathy is influenced by contextual factors as well as the availability of role models. Therefore, further studies about the transition from medical school to clinical work also including the perspective of senior doctors are needed. The study presented in this article aims to better understand the clinical conditions for empathy through interviews with senior doctors about their lived experience of empathy. Twelve senior doctors, from different specialities were interviewed using a semi-structured approach. The data was analysed using content analysis. The analysis resulted in the main theme: Empathy as a silent art–a doctor`s daily balancing act. This main theme comprised three categories: “A tacit, yet language-dependent process”, “A daily balancing act” and “An unsupported path towards mastery”. Doctors face many challenges in their daily balancing act between individual and structural conditions that may affect empathy. In order to maintain and further develop empathy, doctors need working conditions allowing for collegial reflection and conversations that promote empathy. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9754163 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-97541632022-12-16 Empathy as a silent art–A doctor´s daily balancing act: A qualitative study of senior doctors’ experiences of empathy von Knorring, Johanna Lehti, Arja Fahlström, Martin Semb, Olof PLoS One Research Article Empathy in the doctor-patient relationship is of great importance and has long been considered a true professional virtue for doctors. Despite the general agreement concerning the importance of empathy, there is no consensus regarding the definition of empathy in medical research. While several quantitative studies, measuring empathy as an individual trait, show a decline in empathy among medical students, other studies have shown that empathy is influenced by contextual factors as well as the availability of role models. Therefore, further studies about the transition from medical school to clinical work also including the perspective of senior doctors are needed. The study presented in this article aims to better understand the clinical conditions for empathy through interviews with senior doctors about their lived experience of empathy. Twelve senior doctors, from different specialities were interviewed using a semi-structured approach. The data was analysed using content analysis. The analysis resulted in the main theme: Empathy as a silent art–a doctor`s daily balancing act. This main theme comprised three categories: “A tacit, yet language-dependent process”, “A daily balancing act” and “An unsupported path towards mastery”. Doctors face many challenges in their daily balancing act between individual and structural conditions that may affect empathy. In order to maintain and further develop empathy, doctors need working conditions allowing for collegial reflection and conversations that promote empathy. Public Library of Science 2022-12-15 /pmc/articles/PMC9754163/ /pubmed/36520784 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0277474 Text en © 2022 von Knorring et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article von Knorring, Johanna Lehti, Arja Fahlström, Martin Semb, Olof Empathy as a silent art–A doctor´s daily balancing act: A qualitative study of senior doctors’ experiences of empathy |
title | Empathy as a silent art–A doctor´s daily balancing act: A qualitative study of senior doctors’ experiences of empathy |
title_full | Empathy as a silent art–A doctor´s daily balancing act: A qualitative study of senior doctors’ experiences of empathy |
title_fullStr | Empathy as a silent art–A doctor´s daily balancing act: A qualitative study of senior doctors’ experiences of empathy |
title_full_unstemmed | Empathy as a silent art–A doctor´s daily balancing act: A qualitative study of senior doctors’ experiences of empathy |
title_short | Empathy as a silent art–A doctor´s daily balancing act: A qualitative study of senior doctors’ experiences of empathy |
title_sort | empathy as a silent art–a doctor´s daily balancing act: a qualitative study of senior doctors’ experiences of empathy |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9754163/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36520784 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0277474 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT vonknorringjohanna empathyasasilentartadoctorsdailybalancingactaqualitativestudyofseniordoctorsexperiencesofempathy AT lehtiarja empathyasasilentartadoctorsdailybalancingactaqualitativestudyofseniordoctorsexperiencesofempathy AT fahlstrommartin empathyasasilentartadoctorsdailybalancingactaqualitativestudyofseniordoctorsexperiencesofempathy AT sembolof empathyasasilentartadoctorsdailybalancingactaqualitativestudyofseniordoctorsexperiencesofempathy |