Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: David Jeffrey

  • Exploring capacity, consent, and confinement: A humanities-based approach

    Deema al YousufKathryn CobainShagun MisraDavid JeffreyWorcester, United Kingdom Background The UK’s Mental Capacity Act (2005) stresses the importance of patient involvement in the process of informed consent through shared decision-making.1 A workshop was held for forty-one first-year graduate medical students to raise their awareness of this Act. To stimulate their interest, an extract of Clive…

  • Eye contact: a gateway to empathy

    David Jeffrey Edinburgh, United Kingdom   Bradley by David Jeffrey “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…

  • 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…

  • Empathy for medical students

    David Jeffrey Edinburgh, United Kingdom   Medical students check blood glucose on a patient. 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…