WIHI - A Podcast from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement

Date: April 10, 2014 Featuring: Helen Riess, MD, Director, Empathy and Relational Science Program, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital Stacie Pallotta, MPH, Senior Director, Office of Patient Experience, Cleveland Clinic Martha Hayward, Lead for Public and Patient Engagement, Institute for Healthcare Improvement Empathy is not the same thing as sympathy. In the first instance, we feel seen and truly heard; sympathy tends to maintain a distance between two people, often deliberately so. One of the best explanations of the distinction, and why empathy can be so much more powerful, is an online video narrated by human vulnerability expert Dr. Brené Brown. And then there’s the Cleveland Clinic’s video about empathy, directed at health professionals. This moving reminder of the stories behind the faces of patients that pass through health care every day has been viewed on YouTube over a million times. Why the seemingly sudden need to draw the attention of doctors and nurses to the hum