Compassion [kuhm–pash-uhn] noun
A feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.

Compassion Corner is a new weekly series from Patient Worthy that will focus on the subject of compassion in the healthcare and rare disease space. In this series, we explore the role of compassion in this field and what it means for caregivers, patients, and others.

Emma Seppälä, Ph.D., science director of the Center for Compassion at Stanford University recently interviewed the scientist/physician team of Anthony Mazzarelli and Stephen Trzeciak about their new book called Compassionomics: The Revolutionary Scientific Evidence that Caring Makes a Difference. The interview was published by the Washington Post.

Dr. Mazzarelli is an associate dean of Cooper Medical School in New Jersey. He is joined by Dr. Trzeciak, also at the Cooper Medical School. Their research makes a strong case for doctors to be compassionate.

A Controversial Subject

Compassion in healthcare is a controversial subject. Does it contribute to physician burnout? The new book infers that compassion brings about healthier patients and therefore, doctors have less burnout.

The Author’s Definition of Compassion

A simple definition offered by the authors is that compassion is an emotion. It is a reaction to another’s suffering together with the desire to be of assistance.

The doctors make a comparison between empathy, a feeling of understanding, versus compassion or taking action.

Dr. Mazzarelli explains that research using MRI scans supports this theory by showing the recipient’s brain reacting favorably to both empathy and compassion. Empathy activates the brain centers but compassion activates a “reward” center.

Increasing Healing Potential

One example given in the book involves diabetes. Studies show that there is an eighty percent advantage in controlling blood sugar when a diabetic receives compassionate care. There are also a forty-one percent lower incidence of diabetic complications.

A patient’s healing potential is improved by better self-care and adhering to their treatment regimen, particularly if the patient feels that the health care provider is concerned about their well-being.

The team offers the example of a patient being prepared for surgery. Studies have shown that supportive care just prior to surgery results in calming the patient, improving sedation, and less need for postoperative opiates. Patients were also hospitalized for shorter periods.

The Question: Does Compassion Really Matter?

The team believes that compassion is underestimated by a majority of healthcare workers.

The doctors curated data from over 1,000 summaries of research studies (abstracts) and 250 research papers from various medical journals. They searched in relation to one question: Does compassion really matter?

The scientific evidence shows that compassion does have a measurable impact.

The doctors offered advice in recognizing behaviors when selecting a compassionate care team.

• Sitting rather than standing in discussions with the patient
• Caring about the patient’s psychological and emotional well-being
• Facing the patient and making eye contact

Mayo Clinic conducted a study in 2018 that showed physicians interrupting patients after only eleven seconds into the patient’s description of their primary medical concerns.

Further to this finding, research shows that patients really need only twenty-nine seconds to describe their primary concerns.

About Physician Burnout

 The authors were asked how they would explain compassionate care in the face of high burnout rates.

Their response was to reiterate the positive experience compassion brings to the practice of medicine that builds resistance to burnout.

Dr. Trzeciak acknowledged that the traditional view is that being overly compassionate leads to burnout. Yet he points out that research has shown that the opposite is true.

How Can Compassion Lower Medical Expenditures?

Financial incentives given in relation to the total number of patients seen by a doctor discourages compassion. Patients who receive compassionate care from their primary care physicians do not feel the need for major healthcare services. Studies show that in this scenario the medical charges were reduced by fifty percent.

One study goes further to explain the above scenario.

• There is more rapid recovery from the original symptoms
• There are fewer doctor visits
• There is a fifty-nine percent lower referral to specialists
• The need for diagnostic tests is eighty-four percent lower

Results of Depersonalization

Dr. Mazzarelli stated that observing the performance of physicians and surgeons who are characterized as not being compassionate shows that they tend to be responsible for more medical errors.

Of interest is a Mayo Clinic study of 7,905 U.S. surgeons. The number of surgeons committing major surgical errors over a period of ninety days was three times higher than average among those surgeons who exhibited the most depersonalization. The study showed that a lapse in judgment was the primary reason for these errors.