Self-Reflection May Help More Doctors Show Compassion.

Self-Reflection May Help More Doctors Show Compassion.
In a Washington Post (5/16) op-ed, Manoj Jain, of the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, wrote that many "say our healthcare system lacks compassion. I too at times feel that pills and surgeries, CT scans and radiation therapies, biopsies and blood tests have become a priority in medicine and that compassion -- the 'touchy-feely' part of medicine -- has become an afterthought in patient care." However, because few patients "confront doctors about their behavior," the burden of "self-reflection on issues of compassion often remains" with the physicians themselves or a training program. Overall, "I believe that doctors and other healthcare providers are genuinely compassionate and that this is often what steered them toward medicine [and healthcare] in the first place."