Should a doctor feel less empathy for a patient whose hazardous life-style choices resulted in their 'wounds' (drug addicts, alcoholics, cliff divers, motorcyclists, smokers)?
Check out this interesting opinion piece in the New York Times by Gavin Francis. Mr. Francis says, in part.....
"If
physicians are to be effective in relieving suffering, a balance needs
to be found between paucity and excess of empathy. Perhaps awareness of the risks of burnout,
and disseminating knowledge of alexithymia, could help promote this
balance.
In a world saturated with images of
suffering, these concepts apply to all of us. We should be on guard when
our fellow humans belong to different social, racial or religious
groups than ourselves, or when their sufferings are in some way
self-inflicted. Our humanity, as well as our effectiveness in the world,
may depend on it."
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