Medicine & Compassion, A Tibetan Lama’s Guidance For Caregivers
Sep 20th, 2008 by admin
by Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, with David R. Shlim, M.D. “The purpose of this book is to investigate how to combine compassion with the art of healing.” “If one is able to bring a compassionate attitude into the exam room, the patient can feel it and will be better able to communicate what they are really worried about. When the patient can truly open up, the doctor can do a better job of meeting the patient’s needs. This leads to a greater sense of gratification on the part of the doctor at the end of the day. By focusing on compassion, people who design health care systems may begin to help provide what patients actually require to ease suffering, rather than getting caught up in plans to decrease costs and ration care. Focusing on compassion may even be one approach to the struggle that we here in America face to provide universally available and satisfying health care” (p. 13).