Compassion: Hospital priority, critical competency

by Doug Della Pietra Inspired by Fred Lee, author of "If Disney Ran Your Hospital: 9½ Things You Would Do Differently," and his webinar "You Cannot Manage Perceptions in the Same Way You Manage Outcomes," 15 team members and I reflected a couple of weeks ago on the following statements: 1. "It's easy for me to feel compassion towards patients, family members, visitors and others who ... " 2. It's hard for me to feel compassion towards patients, family members, visitors and others who ... " 1 Responses to the first statement include those who look upset, have no family, are distressed or in need, or have health issues to which the team can personally relate. Times when it is hard to feel compassion include people who are disrespectful, mean, condescending, impatient and demanding, have an attitude or feel entitled. Next, I asked, "There's something--an action inside us--that happens between our experience of other people's rudeness, impatience, entitlement, etc. and the resulting challenge of feeling compassion for them. What is it?" We discovered in an eye-popping "aha" sort of way what Lee already knew: "Judgment is the enemy of compassion." In a recent blog post, Louise Altman summarized a key conclusion from a presentation Stephen Porges, Ph.D. gave last summer at The Science of Compassion: Origins, Measures and Interventions conference in Colorado: "Judgment and defensiveness turn off the heart connection." (Emphasis mine.) Amid pressing issues like healthc...
Source: hospital impact - Category: Health Managers Authors: Source Type: blogs