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.
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.
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.
US attitudes toward aging drive patient demands for elective medical and surgical services. Ethical physicians must make sure patients have realistic expectations.