What should you do when compassion for your patient finally cracks?
It is a fragile emotion and sometimes it is necessary to invent reasons to make it exist, says Dr Chavi Eve Karkowsky
Consider this version of the party game ‘Would you rather?’ — Would you rather have a doctor who’s kind and warm or a doctor who’s good at her job?
I know that many people would say this is a false question. A doctor can be both, they’d say.
In fact, they’d say that if a doctor isn’t warm, kind and accepting, then that doctor is not going to be as good at her job because she isn’t listening and won’t hear what she needs to know in order to be good.
But that’s only sometimes true.
