About the Case for Compassion

At work one day, I was talking to a patient about the importance of compassion on patient outcomes.  I was thinking of a study about cardiac patients, and that evening, I tried to google the study to share with my patient.  I was unable to find the study, but I was shocked to find hundreds of research articles about the effects of compassion on health outcomes, provider burnout, and cellular inflammation.  My goal for this blog is to share that research, in combination with my own experiences as a physical therapist in a variety of settings, both inpatient and outpatient.  I believe this is an untapped area of medical care that could be improved at all systems of the healthcare world, from upper management, to finance departments, to individual providers.  I want to explore these ideas here and open the door for paradigm shifting conversation.