Does Your Doctor Need to Show More Empathy?

Instead of being urged to simply "be more compassionate," doctors should learn specific empathy skills during their training to improve their care of patients, one doctor argues in a new paper. According to Dr. David Jeffrey, an honorary lecturer in palliative medicine at the Center for Population Health Sciences in Edinburgh, Scotland, who wrote the paper, there is concern about a general lack of psychological and social support for patients from doctors. In addition, the "commercialization of