Compassion from a palliative care perspective

Abstract

Compassion lies at the heart of good medical care, particularly for the most vulnerable end-of-life patients. However, even though compassion is crucial and central to medical care, it is poorly researched. Our goal was to understand patients’ experiences of compassion and lack of compassion so that we can inform doctors and nurses what compassion is and is not from a dying patient’s perspective. We found that though compassion is so valuable and treasured by patients, it is not that complicated and in fact is “cheap”, meaning it does not take much time and effort from the clinicians. Dying patients see compassion as clinicians connecting with them, talking to them in a way that can be understood, treating them with respect, showing some interest in them and having a positive presence for them.