The difference between empathy and sympathy was one of the first concepts they tried to drill into us during the first week of med school (though admittedly, I still have a hard time putting the concept into words).
I would describe the difference as it's important for a doctor to have empathy for patients - to put be able to put themselves in a patient's shoes to appreciate emotions, motivations, reactions that an average person would experience in a situation, even if you have never experienced it yourself.
But it's still their disease, not yours. And you still have to get shit done. So a doctor should strive to be empathetic (to appreciate and understand) but not sympathetic (to commiserate) because you have shit you have to do and can't go down the rabbit hole with them.
A surgeon has to make incisions and cause their patient pain. A pediatrician has to give childhood vaccines to a screaming infant. A geriatrician has to take the driver's license away from their demented senior. A psychiatrist has to lock up the paranoid schizophrenic.
The difference between empathy and sympathy was one of the first concepts they tried to drill into us during the first week of med school (though admittedly, I still have a hard time putting the concept into words).
I would describe the difference as it's important for a doctor to have empathy for patients - to put be able to put themselves in a patient's shoes to appreciate emotions, motivations, reactions that an average person would experience in a situation, even if you have never experienced it yourself.
But it's still their disease, not yours. And you still have to get shit done. So a doctor should strive to be empathetic (to appreciate and understand) but not sympathetic (to commiserate) because you have shit you have to do and can't go down the rabbit hole with them.
A surgeon has to make incisions and cause their patient pain. A pediatrician has to give childhood vaccines to a screaming infant. A geriatrician has to take the driver's license away from their demented senior. A psychiatrist has to lock up the paranoid schizophrenic.
I always thought this scene from Scrubs illustrated the concept