Why Compassion is Important When Pursuing Healthcare Career

Compassion is a vital component of quality healthcare. Patients who experience compassion from their healthcare providers feel properly cared for, which reduces anxiety and improves patient satisfaction.

If you want to start your healthcare career on the right foot, strengthening your understanding of compassion should be a primary goal. Learning compassion when pursuing a healthcare career teaches you to prioritize your patients' well-being and begin a great relationship built on trust.

Becoming a compassionate healthcare professional is not something that happens overnight. Many care providers must learn to balance compassion with other aspects of their roles. They also have to take necessary steps to avoid a form of burnout known as compassion fatigue.

Compassion in Healthcare

The first principle in the American Medical Association's Principles of Medical Ethics asks physicians to offer 'competent medical care with compassion and respect for human dignity and rights.' To deliver compassionate patient-centered care, you must understand its definition in healthcare.

How Is Compassion Defined in Healthcare?

Compassion is defined as sympathizing with someone's distress and desiring to provide relief. In the field of healthcare, compassion is a show of concern for a patient's medical challenges with a conscious effort to provide a high quality of care that results in the best possible patient outcomes.

Common characteristics of compassion in healthcare include:

• recognizing or noticing a patient's feelings and suffering
• creating an emotional connection with a patient's suffering or distress
• tolerating the challenging feelings that come with experiencing someone's suffering
• feeling motivated to address the suffering

Another way to describe the compassionate patient care provider is to say you have emotional resonance ?or sympathy for someone's pain coupled with a desire to help.

Why It's Important To Show Compassion In Healthcare Settings

The role of compassion in healthcare is huge. Research from BMC Palliat Care published on PubMed Central shows that a lack of compassion often leads to more complaints, increased costs, and unfavorable patient experiences. So, what are the benefits of compassion in healthcare settings?

1. Improve Relationships Between Primary Care Providers and Patients

When providing care, it's important not to insinuate that patients' perceptions of their well-being are figments of their imagination. Clinicians who listen and express genuine concern are rewarded with patients and family members who more willingly follow their advice and treatment plans. This connection helps build long-term relationships based on mutual respect and trust.

2. Increase Health Interventions

Compassionate healthcare providers are more likely to listen to their patients' concerns. Sympathy for patients' suffering often encourages medical providers to address patient needs as they arise. It can also help caregivers find undetected medical conditions and successfully intervene before they worsen.

3. Better Health Outcomes

Listening to the patient's perspective and taking their concerns seriously helps healthcare professionals take preventive measures before health issues arise. Preventive care plays a major role in improved patient health outcomes and includes:

• patient counseling
• screenings
• check-ups to prevent health problems

4. Stronger Healthcare System

One of the best outcomes of compassionate medical care is a stronger healthcare system. Patients who feel heard and valued are more likely to visit medical providers (doctor's offices, urgent care centers, emergency rooms) when they are ill or injured. Healthier patients save the healthcare system money. They also give healthcare organizations more traffic, which helps them thrive.

How Can Healthcare Professionals Be More Compassionate?

While offering compassionate care is ideal for all healthcare providers, it's not always easy. Busy schedules and endless responsibilities can sometimes make clinicians forget all about sympathizing with their patients. If compassion is a struggle, consider these tips:

• become an active listener who patiently takes in your patient's concerns
• pay attention to your patient's body language to pick up on communication that isn't delivered verbally
• show personal interest in your patient's life beyond their medical conditions (ex. ask about their day, family life, etc.)
• practice self-compassion and self-care by seeking therapy, meditating, journaling, and taking other steps to manage your mental health

Other tips for being more compassionate include taking breaks when you need them, enhancing your health through diet and exercise, and reminding yourself of the reasons you got into clinical care in the first place.

Avoiding Compassion Fatigue as a Healthcare Provider

While healthcare providers are encouraged to treat their patients with a high level of compassion, they should be careful not to fall victim to compassion fatigue. Clinicians experiencing compassion fatigue become overwhelmed and begin to feel less sympathy for their patients or become detached from their health outcomes.

Medical providers can take steps to avoid compassion fatigue. Here are a few recommendations:

• take frequent breaks when possible to avoid becoming overwhelmed by your patient's emotional and physical traumas
• recognize your limits as a healthcare provider and make adjustments to your schedule or career as necessary
• let your co-workers and management know how you feel to receive the right support

A part of combatting compassion fatigue is knowing the signs when they arise. You might realize you're socially isolating, expressing irritability and anger, experiencing mood swings, and struggling to concentrate. You could also dread working with certain patients, particularly individuals who need palliative or end-of-life care.

Allowing compassion fatigue to go unchecked could have a detrimental impact on your career. When you recognize a problem brewing, take the necessary steps to get the help you need.

How Can You Learn Compassion as a Healthcare Provider

Learning the best ways to become a compassionate nurse, doctor, or other healthcare provider starts with your medical education. Whether you're a nursing or medical student, you want to lean on the expertise all around you to learn how to provide the most compassionate care. Consider doing the following:

• asking your educators in nursing or medical school for the methods they use to provide care with compassion
• modeling the compassionate behaviors of clinicians as you shadow their patient care
• remembering that patients are human beings just like you and deserve to be treated as you would like to be treated

Once you've learned how to feel compassion for your patients, work on your communication skills so you can confidently express the sympathy you feel for them.