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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...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: von Knorring, Johanna, Lehti, Arja, Fahlström, Martin, Semb, Olof
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
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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.
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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
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