Support of one another
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As I explored empathy in medicine through my work Empathy Exams I discovered various eye opening realizations. Empathy in medicine isn't necessarily the first thing you think of when you think where and how people use empathy, but the use of empathy in medicine is considerably one of the most important. Patience seek and desire empathy from their healthcare providers. Some empathetic traits and examples would include: voiced empathy/concern, careful actions, patience, reliability, understanding, being on time, and a willingness to explain. Sometimes empathy is just a matter of fact of just being present and that human connection, "He stayed with me in the hospital, five nights in those crisp white beds, and he lay down with my monitor wires, colored strands carrying the electrical signature of my heart to a small box I held in my hands. I remember lying tangled with him, how much it meant- that he was willing to lie down in the mess of wires, to say there with me" (Jamison 21). Empathy isn't always an easy thing to do with unusual sounds and mechanisms surrounding you, but it's even harder as you may be deep within your own emotional roller coaster or have to face the fact and realize that you may have no idea what that person is going through. The fact of physical and not belittling a person can be a huge step towards empathy. No your health care providors aren't gonna climb into bed with you, but they are there to listen and support you through what may seem like an out of body experience. This is not just important, but critical when caring for patients and their families. This helps the people you care for on a daily basis feel humanly attached in a sense that although they are in spot that some of their need or wants have been taken away from them they feel that they are being heard and supported in every way possible.

Clinical empathy is also a matter of trying to explain foreign topics in a way they can make sense to the everyday person, as they are full of fear and questions. Speaking to this situation, "Maybe it was just because he was a man. I didn't need him to be my mother-even for a day-I only needed him to know what he was doing. But I think it was something more. Instead of identifying with my panic-inhabiting my horror at the prospect of a pacemaker-he was helping me understand that even this, the barnacle of a false heart, would be okay. His calmness didn't make me feel abandoned, it made me feel secure. It offered assurance rather than empathy, or maybe assurance was evidence of empathy, insofar as he understood that assurance, not identification, was what I needed most. Empathy is a kind of care but it's not the only kind of care, and it's not always enough. I want think that's what Dr. G. was thinking. I needed to look at him and see the opposite of my fear, not its echo" (Jamison 17). Doctor G was able to remain calm and offered more evidence/assurance that a pacemaker wouldn't be the end of the world, as he did this he was able to explain it in a nurturing way (Doctor G was compared to this mother figured) much like a family would explain something to their own family. Empathy in medicine can to the evidence of a nurturing like figure, as its role is to support and allow a person to feel human again in what might seem like a foreign world.