Report July 2018

Compassion SIG Report 2018

 

by Rodger Charlton

Prof of Undergraduate Primary Care Education, Leicester

Background

  • Started in 2015
  • Annual Meetings

SIG Objectives

  • Bringing compassion to the forefront in clinical practice and health care education in primary care
  • Maintaining compassion whilst working in the NHS
  • Defining compassion through research and the factors that influence compassion in the consultation such as resilience
  • Ascertaining ways in which awareness can be heightened and also how this can be achieved through the undergraduate and postgraduate training of health care professionals
  • Running a workshop at the annual SAPC conference and where possible locality conferences
  • Creating an annual prize for students / trainees for a piece of reflective writing (prose or poetry) on a defined theme relating to compassion in healthcare

Outcome of 2015 SIG Meeting

  • Deluge of emails which were difficult to bring to an end including the Institute of Compassion with whom I have met all on the theme;
  • Definitions of empathy / compassion are manifold and that there are is conceptual confusion as to the definition of empathy / compassion

Outcome of 2016 SIG Meeting – Publication below

Publication for the 2017 National SAPC Conference, Warwick

  • Charlton, R., Hayward, C., Rees, J., Weston, C.  A Human Touch (Anthology of Prose & Poetry) by the Undergraduates of Swansea Medical School. ISBN: 978-0-9545604-3-0. 130pp. 12th July 2017 released at the National Society of Academic Primary Care Conference. Themes; Compassion & Palliative Care.

Questions from the workshop on 12th July 2017

  • Need to see doctors as people and not superhuman
  • Developing support for GPs so they continue to be compassionate
  • Is there evidence that we can teach compassion?
  • Being involved in some research in relation to compassion
  • Raising compassion more in the SAPC
  • Research from other side – healthcare professionals as people
  • Trigger points for dispassion – what we can do? Can we recognise them?
  • ? incorporate in the undergraduate curriculum
  • For student training - the importance of following up patients both those who have no illness eg a pregnant mother and after the birth to see and appreciate what normal is and form a therapeutic relationship and following up a patient who is ill and again seeing the importance of the therapeutic relationship.

SIG Meeting 2018, London - Where to now with the Compassion SIG?

Key Issues

• Definitions of empathy / compassion are manifold and that there are is conceptual confusion as to the definition of empathy / compassion and also that it evolves and changes during medical education / training

• What of antithesis of Compassion; Dispassion and the current toxic environment of the NHS?

Findings of a Review

• Selection of students into medical school should not necessarily be on empathetic abilities and that the factors decreasing the exertion of empathy cannot be directly influenced by changes in the curriculum. However, factors such as the hidden curriculum, time to provide quality consultations, and the importance of role models are demonstrated in the research as very important factors and are very relevant to current health care systems. Also an interesting finding that there is a need for early patient contact in students' studies and this is something lacking in many medical schools

Post Conference

Given the success of the Caritas-Creativity theme at the Annual Conference to revisit through the SIG the objective to creating an annual prize for students / trainees for a piece of reflective writing (poetry) relating to the theme of compassion in healthcare

Rodger Charlton 31.07.18

 

Special interest group: 
Compassion