Compassion

After reading an article written by Bill Rosenberger at The Herald-Dispatch on the importance of compassion, I was reminded of a story my mother refused to tell me for a long while until I had recovered. In 1994 we had just transferred to the Rehab Institute of Chicago about one year after my traumatic brain injury.

I was haltingly walking down a hallway in front of my Neuro-surgeon, when my mother excitedly said, “Isn’t she doing great?”

Where upon the doctor said, “Don’t you understand how serious your daughter's injury was, She will NEVER get better!”

Whereupon, my mother dug her fingernails into her hand and willed herself not to cry. She could not allow the doctor any satisfaction of seeing her fall apart. But crying is all she felt like doing.

Do you think honesty or compassion is best for the patients and care givers? No one truly knows the fate of trauma victims. How do you think honesty can affect one’s recovery?

Physicians and faculty members took part in Solidarity day to remind students of the importance compassion holds in treating patients. This was one of 60 events being held nationwide at medical schools as part of Humanism in Medicine Week and Solidarity Day. The Gold Humanism Honor Society was started three years ago following the deadly shooting in Tuscon, Arizona, that left former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords with a gunshot wound to the head in January 2011.

Dr. Randall Friese, who was the trauma surgeon that initially treated Giffords, said that sitting by to her bedside, taking her hand to tell her that she was in the hospital and would be cared for, was the most important thing he did for her in the ER.

Dr. Joseph Werthammer, the senior associate dean for Clinical Affairs and a neonatologist at Cabell Huntington Hospital, told his own story of compassion that came full circle in a grocery store last summer. As he shopped for cereal, a woman and her 21-year-old daughter approached him. The mother said she had been mad at him for the past 21 years because of what he told her when her daughter was born premature and weighed less than 2 pounds. At a time when technology was dramatically different than it is today, Werthammer said he was just trying to be realistic with the woman about the baby's chance for survival.

In the grocery aisle that day, Werthammer realized that he had taken away her hope. He traveled back 15 years to when his son was in an accident that left him in a coma and with brain injuries. He remembered that two of the three neurosurgeons projected a very optimistic attitude, while the other was always doom and gloom. Because both the woman's daughter and Werthammer's son have survived and are doing well, they both serve as a reminder that honesty can be devoid of compassion.

"I could understand why that lady was mad at me," Werthammer said.

"Patients expect competency, but you have to be compassionate to win loyalty," he added.

Sometimes, the compassion part can get lost, says Brian Abadir, a fourth-year student who plans to be an anesthesiologist. He Said, students work and study hard during the first two years of medical school in an effort to acquire knowledge, not compassion.

"It reminds us this isn't just about finding out what's wrong and curing it," said Abadir, a member of the med school's Gold Humanism Honor Society. "It's about taking care of them and helping to heal their heart and soul."

My mother's heart and soul were crushed that day in the hallway of the Rehab Institute of Chicago. Do you think honesty or compassion would have been better in that situation? I truly believe that compassion can be so very healing!