The lives of patients in a clinical setting are important and they should be treated equally and given the same opportunities and care for their optimal well-being. Developing empathy in a clinical setting is an important characteristic to build as a health care provider in the development of competence. Understanding the situations, feelings, perceptions and concerns of the patient is crucial in developing a relationship with the patient for satisfactory treatment outcomes (Ratka, 2018).
The picture of the pendulum scale portrays the imbalance in the clinical setting and the care given to the patients as some of these patients do not receive the adequate amount of time needed for management. Reflecting back on my experience in clinical practice this year, I have encountered many CVA patients during my general block at Stellenbosch Hospital (SBH) all of different races, cultures, circumstances and coming from different communities.
Most instances in my time at SBH, there would be several new referrals per week and each of these patients had to be discharged with in 2-3 days of being in hospital. Every so often I would only be able to assess and treat these patients for one session and they would be discharged by being given an outpatient appointment date for the availability of new patients to be admitted into the wards.
Most of these patients came from difficult circumstances and did not have the transport, money to return for physiotherapy rehabilitation because of living far distance, family members not having the time to bring them or just due to lack of motivation.
I developed a lot of empathy when I encountered a 56 year old patient who was only able to make an outpatient appointment 2 weeks after being discharged and he had confided in me saying that he would rather die because he felt hopeless not being able to care for himself anymore and due to the fact that his son did not show any sympathy for the state he was in. I feIt so much compassion for my patient seeing the manner in which he was being treated by his son and how it affected his mentality about himself by being pessimistic about getting better and undergoing rehabilitation. I then thought to myself that we as health professionals are people that our patients can trust and open up to easily and should therefore always develop empathy and understanding with each other. As we have the experience and knowledge behind the reasons why patients feel the way they do in certain situations due to their conditions/impairments and should be there to encourage and inspire them through their recovery journeys and also make their family members have a better understanding.
It is therefore of utmost importance to build a patient/caregiver relationship, so that there can be a development of trust, understanding and motivation as the progress of the patient is the most important part that we as caregivers are responsible for. The scale of life in a clinical should not only be momentarily but be balanced overtime and between everyone through careful consideration of the patients well being.
References:Ratka A. (2018). Empathy and the Development of Affective Skills. American journal of pharmaceutical education, 82(10), 7192. doi:10.5688/ajpe7192
3 thoughts on “The Scale of Life in a Clinical Setting”
Hi Yusrah, thank you for sharing your clinical experience with me. Having a patient confide something so personal with you, must have taken a toll on you. How did you react to something like that? Sometimes when patients tell me details about their life, not all of it good, I find myself not knowing what to say to them. I try to understand their situation, show empathy, but its difficult when I haven’t experienced what they have. I liked the way you used an unbalanced scale to show the inequality which occurs in a hospital setting. With regards to your fourth paragraph, where you talk about the patients not being able to attend outpatient physio because of certain circumstances, “did not have the transport, money to return for” particularly here, is the transport and money two separate issues, or is it one issue? If its one issue, remove the comma and “the” before the word transport, as then it would make more sense. Perhaps you can add in what you learned from this experience and feeling empathy towards your patients? Maybe add in a quote or pose a question that would be thought provoking to the reader? Other than that, a good piece that I enjoyed reading.
I found your piece to be very well written and an issue that I struggle to understand as well. I really enjoyed reading our clinical experience as I am able to relate to how you feel. We as practitioners need to come to together in order to bring about change in our patient’s lives specifically in their wellbeing.
I feel that perhaps your introduction and conclusion could be a bit more thought provoking? Leave the reader wanting to read further in terms of the introduction? In for the conclusion, maybe to try to inspire the reader to maybe want to research or even to inspire change, you never know 🙂
The content within the piece is very well written and does not need to be changed as I was intrigued to read more. So well done on a great piece that I really enjoyed reading it!
Hi Yusrah
I really enjoyed reading your piece as I’m currently on my general block at Stellenbosch Hospital. I have encountered very similar situations with all the CVA patients I’ve seen. Some of them came in on a Thursday, therefore I only saw them on that day and when I came back on Monday, they were discharged. Not all of those that can go to the hospice can actually go, as the hospice also don’t have beds available.
I agree with what Keegan suggested, try and grab the reader’s attention in your introduction. Instead of only defining empathy, maybe pose a question to the reader – something like “How DO we show empathy towards our patients?” With that being said, maybe add a link or article where the reader can read more about empathy and how they can be more empathic towards a patient or any other person they may come in contact with.
Overall, your piece is well written and thought through. Thank you for sharing your experience.
Maresa