This scenario is also familiar to much of the medical community. In fact, the highly respected Massachusetts General Hospital has launched a training program engineered to teach doctors empathy. This is not a program designed to simply improve “bedside manner,” but, rather, to teach the skill of empathy.
Now, why would physicians, with their wealth of medical knowledge and skill (and very limited time) invest in learning empathy? Because they know that improved disease management and surgery outcomes depend on adherence and that recent studies have revealed that empathy improves adherence results significantly (Di Blasi et al., 2001; Halpern 2001; Stewart 1995; Gerteis et al., 1993).
So, why is empathy important to health and fitness professionals? As Dr. Cedric Bryant, Chief Science Officer at ACE, explains, “Healthcare is the ultimate team sport.” As physicians increasingly recognize the skill of empathy as the key to adherence, they will be more confident in working with health and fitness professionals who demonstrate and share their view of the skill of empathy.
You may also like
The “empathy index”, which marks Britain’s 100 best-known companies on their treatment of staff and customers, found public relations was the casualty in “a hectic race to the bottom” in the telecoms industry, which had fo…
As a theater educator, I’m pleased to see the focus that is being given to the importance of empathy in education. I wish more people understood that theatre/drama has been proven to increase empathy in students, but that’s for another post…
If corporations want to achieve higher levels of ethics, their first step should be working on their ability to be empathetic. When MRG examined what was the strongest predictor of ethical leadership behaviour out of the 22 competencies in their …
“She reinforced that essential value of empathy that my mother and my grandparents had taught me. That is something that I carry with me every day as President,” he wrote. “This is the simple and undeniable power of a good teacher. Th…