Beyond empathy.
Empathy is a highly desirable trait in a physician, but the term means different things to different people. Rather than focus on empathy, it may be more fruitful to consider the individual ingredients of a successful patient-physician engagement: scientific competency, imagination (the basis of empathy), caring about the patient, attentive (nonjudgmental) listening to the person's story, and skill in rewriting the illness story. The cardinal skill, on a sound base of scientific competence, is imagination. A successful engagement has beneficial consequences for physicians as well as patients.
Sobel
Richard
R
School of Applied Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel. enriso@bezeqint.net
D001288:Attention; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003142:Communication; D004645:Empathy; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination; D033262:Narration; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D010819:Physician's Role; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology*; D014956:Writing