We would want to start this section with a quote that sums up our aim of writing this articles for Doctor as a Humanist movement: “Patients don’t care about how much you know if you don’t show them how much you care”
We are Paula (medicine student) and Irene (doctor) from Spain, and we would like to write about health issues but trying to approach them not only by “science-book-knowledge” but mainly focusing on the human dimmension. So on, we would try to help doctors by giving them “ emotional skills” that could be useful to manage situations we will all have to cope with, not only as a doctors but also as patients or patients-related.
Our main point will be the humanization of healthcare and its positive impact on patients. We will search information for helping people managing difficult situations and also we will try to give psychological self-care tips that could be useful for our daily lifes, so we can get to know ourselves better. We will draw special attention to the dimension of suffering that every disease carries with, specially to the ones that implies mental health such as anxiety, depression or suicide.
Specifically as doctors, we are not vaccinated against suffering, and sadly sometimes our profession involves a burden that can lead us to the “ burn-out” syndrome; here we would try to see how this can be prevented. Also communication is crucial when it comes to treat with people, and sadly, in some situations, we show towards the patient a lack of empathy that they sense.
Of course, if we try to answer the question ‘How can we be our best selves (as a doctor)?’, our limbic/emotional brain has a crucial role on it that we can work in order to improve. Upon our scientific knowledge, that it is of course really important, we also need this humanism dimension to connect with our colleagues and, specially,with our patients.
Irene Cortiguera, Paula Castillo.
Journal of a Young Doctor 