Show Empathy
February 28, 2010 – 8:08 pm
I went to one of the grandrounds. The speaker talked about Emergency Room Patient Experiences. The speaker also discussed many issues on showing empathy towards patients. What is empathy? A great definition for empathy from wikipedia is “the capability to share another being’s emotions and feelings” meaning that you have to be in other person’s shoe to feel their emotions.
The speaker told audiences a story that I want to share with you. One day a poor woman from a remote area located in the southern part of India, went to see Gandhi to ask if he can help her son. The issue was her son eats sweets all the time and doesn’t want to stop. She realized that it is bad for his health and he wasn’t ready to listen to her advice. So this woman stayed in a long line for many days to talk to Gandhi. Finally, she got a chance to see him. She begged Gandhi to tell his son to stop eating sweets. Gandhi said ” come back in a week”. The woman was so disappointed and went home without getting what she wanted.
A week passed, she went back to Gandhi’s place and started to wait for hours and hours to see him. The door man came and escorted the woman to Gandhi’s place. Women said ” I don’t know if you remember me or not, I was here last week regarding my son’s habit of eating too much sweet. You told me to come back again in a week. I am here now and can you advice my son not to eat sweets. Gandhi said ” hey, boy, don’t eat too much sweets”. The door man came to take them back, the women said ” wait, I really need a minute to talk to Gandhi”. She asked him “why didn’t you say that to him last week? why did you tell me to come back in a week?” So Gandhi replied ” woman.. I needed a week to quit eating sweets before I give an advice to your boy”.
Before we start to advice somebody. We should weigh the situation. What if I am in that situation? Would I do this? Am I capable of doing such an act? Ask yourself these questions before you talk. Put yourself in others’ shoes !!!
