Tag: David Jeffrey
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Eye contact: A gateway to empathy
David JeffreyEdinburgh, United Kingdom “Do you think I needed anticoagulants for my atrial fibrillation?” I asked the general practitioner. He stared at his computer screen, and answered without looking at me. “No-one knows for sure. I will print out a recent article which you can read at home and then decide what you would like…
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Montaigne’s Essays: Emotions and empathy
David JeffreyEdinburgh, Scotland The term empathy was coined a little over a hundred years ago and since then its definition has evolved. At first empathy was regarded as a sharing of emotions, but modern medicine emphasizes cognitive aspects of the concept.1 Regarding the sharing of emotion with suspicion has led to a form of professionalism…
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Empathy for medical students
David JeffreyEdinburgh, United Kingdom On a windy corner of Drummond Street, not far from Rutherford’s pub in Edinburgh, there is a small bronze plaque with these words: “And when I remembered all that I hoped and feared as I pickled about Rutherford’s in the rain and the east wind; how I feared I should be…