Danielle Ofri, MD is an essayist, editor, and practicing
internist in New York City. She is an attending physician at Bellevue
Hospital, and Associate Professor of Medicine at New York University
School of Medicine. Danielle is co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of the
Bellevue Literary Review, the first
literary journal to arise from a medical setting.
Danielle's newest book -
What Doctors
Feel: How Emotions Affect the Practice of Medicine – explores the
hidden emotional world of the doctor, and how this impacts the medical
care that patients receive every day. She writes, "It’s no wonder that the
third year of medical school figures prominently in studies that document
decline of empathy and moral reasoning in medical trainees... the erosion
of empathy, for example, may have long-reaching consequences. Patients of
doctors who score lower on tests that measure empathy appear to have worse
clinical outcomes. Diabetic patients, for instance, have worse control of
their blood sugar and cholesterol. Cancer patients seem to experience more
depression. Medication compliance diminishes. Even the common cold can
last longer."
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2013
-06-04 -
The Darkest Year of Medical School
Students come in altruistic and empathetic. They leave jaded and bitter. "However, there is a darker side of this transition to clinical
medicine. Many of the qualities that students entered medical school
with—altruism, empathy, generosity of spirit, love of learning, high
ethical standards—are eroded by the end of medical training. Newly
minted doctors can begin their careers jaded, self-doubting, even
embittered (not to mention six figures in debt ... It’s no wonder that
the third year of medical school figures prominently in studies that
document the decline of empathy and moral
reasoning in medical trainees... the erosion of empathy, for example,
may have long-reaching consequences. Patients of doctors who score lower
on tests that measure empathy appear to have worse clinical outcomes.
Diabetic patients, for instance, have worse control of their blood sugar
and cholesterol. Cancer patients seem to experience more depression.
Medication compliance diminishes. Even the common cold can last
longer. "
What Doctors Feel: Emotions in Medicine
"Though they may feel pressure to be detached and emotionless, doctors'
medical practices are often influenced by their feelings. From empathy
to shame, John Munson's guest this hour helps us understand what doctors
feel.
Guest: Danielle Ofri (OH-free), MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine
at New York University School of Medicine; cares for patients at New
York's Bellevue Hospital; author of, "What Doctors Feel: How Emotions
Affect the Practice of Medicine"
"In internist's Danielle Ofri's latest book, What
Doctor's Feel, she explores the emotions doctors shoulder -- from
feeling an exaggerated sense of responsibility for their patients
wellbeing to the shame of medical errors, to how empathy is being
trained out of medical students...
Riva Greenberg: As you wrote about in What Doctor's Feel, why do medical
students lose empathy during their training?
Danielle Ofri: I think it's not about who we select to become doctors.
Medical students come in with all the right traits. They're eager,
caring, desperate to help, but then too often come out of medical school
jaded. Oddly, their empathy seems to erode just as they're starting to
work with patients in their third year. Empathy doesn't solve medical
problems, but you can't solve them without it.
RG: Why do they lose empathy?"
2013-07-02
- The Epidemic of Disillusioned Doctors "We all know medicine has become a
frustrating profession. But surveys show that a younger generation of
doctors are more resilient to burnout...
It’s much harder for disillusioned doctors
to muster empathy for their patients. This too is a danger. Patients ofdoctors
who score loweron
the empathy scale have worse clinical outcomes."
2013-06-09 - The darkest year of medical school
"Students arrive altruistic and empathetic. They often leave jaded and
bitter
However, there is a darker side of this
transition to clinical medicine. Many of the qualities that students
entered medical school with -- altruism, empathy, generosity of spirit,
love of learning, high ethical standards -- are eroded by the end of
medical training. Newly minted doctors can begin their careers jaded,
self-doubting, even embittered (not to mention six figures in debt)...
Much of what they learned about doctor-patient
communication, bedside manner and empathy turns out to be mere lip
service when it comes to the actualities of patient care.
It's no wonder that the third year of medical school
figures prominently in studies that document the decline of empathy and
moral reasoning in medical trainees."
Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD is an associate professor of
medicine at New York University School of Medicine and has cared for
patients at Bellevue Hospital for over two decades. She is the author of
What Doctors Feel: How Emotions Affect the Practice of Medicine,
Singular Intimacies: Becoming a Doctor at Bellevue, Incidental Findings:
Lessons from my Patients in the Art of Medicine, and her latest book,
Medicine in Translation: Journeys With My Patients. Ofri is a regular
contributor to the New York Times' Well blog as well as the New York
Times' "Science Times" section.
