The column by Craig Pearson (“Empathy, passion make us human,” SN 1/17) about empathy is enlightening. I would like to share some thoughts and reflections about empathy. What I admired most in Pearson’s column is his statement: “Empathy is one of the most vital human attributes, and without it, we cannot expect to live in a world where people understand each other and work together to solve problems. Whether you’re in politics or business, empathy is indispensable.” I echo this far-reaching statement and agree that empathy can be “improved with practice.”
For us humans, empathy has universal implications and applications in various social interactions. Defined more practically, empathy is one’s understanding of others’ suffering — in the case of health care interactions, for example — or others’ shortcomings in various social interactions and situations at large.
This very concept of “putting yourself in others’ shoes” was taken literally by my daughter’s middle school, which has recently started a club called the “Shoe Club,” which she elected to join. As I was driving my daughter to attend the first meeting of this newly founded “Shoe Club,” I asked, “What is this club all about?” Anticipating the answer, and as this school activity is self-explanatory, I was pleased to hear from her well-spoken answer how the school is teaching the kids, early on, the essential basics of empathy!
I am sharing this personal experience to add other factors that can enhance empathy within us as humans. While I do not mean to underestimate the power of reading in reinforcing empathy — via self-transporting and personal reflection — as emphasized by Pearson, I would like to add other factors that can enhance empathy, including parenting, early schooling, mentoring and role modeling and the various activities of community centers and religious and other social aggregations.
Finally, as a clinician, I have observed the importance of empathy toward providing better medical care. I cannot claim to be 100 percent compliant with empathy 100 percent of the time being just another human being. However, I realized how empathy has grown stronger within me, having suffered medical problems myself, as detailed in a recent publication titled “When the Doctor is the Patient,” inspired in part by the movie “The Doctor,” a must-see movie for those of us questing for a better understanding of empathy.
Dr. Saleh Aldasouqi, Associate Professor, MSU College of Human Medicine
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