What’s wrong with doctors today? I’m a doctor; I can tell you. Doctors and patients exist in two distinct worlds: the world of the healthy and the world of the sick. The only language that connects these two worlds is kindness and compassion—this is how doctors and patients connect. If you are fluent in this language, you can traverse the divide.
Several studies have shown a sharp decline in empathy by the time students finish medical school. The compassion continues to drop during residency and fellowship, until finally, he or she is a physician with patients depending on them.
The slow but ensured death of empathy in medical education is not an accident.
