Doctor Do You Care? - Physician Empathy Lacks With Lung Cancer

”I told my doctor that I was afraid of dying, and all he did was talk about a new chemotherapy drug we could try. Doesn’t he care about how I feel?”

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Those words, spoken to me in various forms over the years, are ping-ponging through my brain, amplified by a study just released. Moments when people struggling with lung cancer reach out for some understanding or compassion from their doctors – “empathic opportunities” per the authors of the study – were largely ignored by their physicians. Concerning questions about morbidity (being sick), and mortality (dying), the patients comments were addressed less than 10% of the time.

Why?

Possible reasons the authors cite include lack of time, failure to recognize empathic opportunities because they are attending to other tasks such as making a diagnosis, a sense of failure when there is limited potential for a cure, or a physicians own vulnerability to illness and dying.

This article, however, does not leave me with a sense of despair. The authors state that physicians often start medical school with empathy for their patients, and only later learn detachment. Rather than draining a physicians emotions, studies suggest that providing empathy is actually a way to prevent burnout and lessen physican stress, making practice more rewarding. They conclude by stating, “Fortunately, studies indicate that expressing empathy can be taught and that these statements can be brief and powerful, not prolong the encounter or necessarily changing a physician’s style." I hope this article is read widely by anyone in medicine who cares for those with lung cancer, or any illness for that matter.

Have any of you experienced a lack of empathy from your doctor – a sense that he or she is interested in only the “biology” of your disease, and not your emotional state as a person? If so, what was your response? Do you have any advice/ideas for others that feel a lack of empathy from their physicians?

Further Reading:

Effective Patient-Doctor Communications

_Source:

Morse, D. et al. Missed Opportunities for Interval Empathy in Lung Cancer Communication. Archives of Internal Medicine. 2008. 168(17):1853-1858.