There are at least two considerations here: the patient’s perception of a physician’s empathic expression and the physician’s level of comfort with expressing empathy and attending to patients’ emotions.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(2):111-115. doi:
10.1001/virtualmentor.2015.17.2.ecas1-1502.
Patients who have been encouraged to think of themselves as consumers and a medical system that is driven by individual demands rather than big-picture planning can undermine fairness in the distribution of vaccines.
PRIME-LC is a 5-year, dual-degree program at the University of California, Irvine Medical School that educates physician activists to serve in poor Latino communities.
Bioethicist Bruce Jennings examines the changing role of physicians in end-of-life care, from paternalistic decision maker to advisor-technician and half-way back.