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.
In the same way that we learn about normal variations in blood pressure, we need to learn about “normal” variations in sexual interests and practices. We want to avoid clueless questions or unintentionally inflammatory statements.
Concerns about the deleterious effects of stress on the mind and body have led to the beginnings of a stress vaccine, an injection that will reduce these effects.
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.