Clinical empathy

Clinical empathy is expressed as the skill of understanding what a patient says and feels, and effectively communicating this understanding to the patient.[1] The opposite of clinical empathy is clinical detachment. Detached concern, or clinical detachment, is the ability to distance oneself from the patient in order to serve the patient from an objective standpoint.[2] For physicians to maximize their role as providers, a balance must be developed between clinical detachment and clinical empathy.[3]

In 2001, an instrument was created to measure a physician's empathy towards each patient. This tool is called the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy.[4] The 20-item questionnaire was originally developed for administration to medical students and physicians but has extended to dentistry and nursing because it is easy to interpret, administer, and analyze.[5][6]

From a student's first year to their fourth year in medical school, empathy scores on the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (S-version) decrease.[7] Both gender and specialty choice affect empathy scores, favoring women and primary care specialties.[8]

  1. ^ Olson, Joanne K. (December 1995). "Relationships Between Nurse-Expressed Empathy, Patient-Perceived Empathy and Patient Distress". Image: The Journal of Nursing Scholarship. 27 (4): 317–322. doi:10.1111/j.1547-5069.1995.tb00895.x. PMID 8530122.
  2. ^ Tseng, Wei-Ting; Lin, Ya-Ping (6 May 2016). "'Detached concern' of medical students in a cadaver dissection course: A phenomenological study". Anatomical Sciences Education. 9 (3): 265–271. doi:10.1002/ase.1579. PMID 26587913.
  3. ^ Body of Work: Meditations on Mortality from the Human Anatomy Lab. ISBN 978-1-4295-4753-6.[page needed]
  4. ^ Hojat, Mohammadreza; Mangione, Salvatore; Nasca, Thomas J.; Cohen, Mitchell J. M.; Gonnella, Joseph S.; Erdmann, James B.; Veloski, Jon; Magee, Mike (2 July 2016). "The Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy: Development and Preliminary Psychometric Data". Educational and Psychological Measurement. 61 (2): 349–365. doi:10.1177/00131640121971158. S2CID 144762663.
  5. ^ Sherman, JJ; Cramer, A (March 2005). "Measurement of changes in empathy during dental school". Journal of Dental Education. 69 (3): 338–45. doi:10.1002/j.0022-0337.2005.69.3.tb03920.x. PMID 15749944.
  6. ^ Fields, Sylvia K.; Hojat, Mohammadreza; Gonnella, Joseph S.; Mangione, Salvatore; Kane, Gregory; Magee, Mike (22 June 2016). "Comparisons of Nurses and Physicians on an Operational Measure of Empathy". Evaluation & the Health Professions. 27 (1): 80–94. doi:10.1177/0163278703261206. PMID 14994561. S2CID 33787233.
  7. ^ Chen, Daniel; Lew, Robert; Hershman, Warren; Orlander, Jay (26 July 2007). "A Cross-sectional Measurement of Medical Student Empathy". Journal of General Internal Medicine. 22 (10): 1434–1438. doi:10.1007/s11606-007-0298-x. PMC 2305857. PMID 17653807.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference :3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).