How do medical schools view the "need to experience to empathize debate"?

[steelersfan1243]

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Do medical schools accept not being able to help someone due to a lack of relatable experience? This sounds neurotic as I write it, but is it accepted in the medical community there will be situations you will be of no help due to lack of experience?

For example, as a resident assistant I was confronted with a resident who just broke up with his high school sweet heart. I never had to deal with an intimate relationship so I found it difficult to try to say the right words or the right advice. I redirected him to someone who went through the same ordeal and could be of better help.

 

[Cotterpin]

I'm not sure I'm following you. Are you saying that if you haven't had the same experiences another person has had, there's no way to help them at all? Seems like you wouldn't be able to help very many people if that were true. Empathy doesn't mean that you literally have to experience the exact thing a person is going through. Empathy is about putting yourself in another person's shoes and trying to understand what they're feeling even if you haven't been through the same things.

So I guess I'm saying yes, it can definitely be viewed as a negative if you don't think you can empathize with people who have different experiences from yours.

 

[Romz]

OP maybe you're confusing sympathy with empathy. Sympathy is when you feel a common emotion or connection. Empathy is the ability to understand someone else's pain and hardships by putting yourself in their shoes. As @Cotterpin alluded to, Medical schools want candidates who can empathize. Even though you could not have sympathy in your situation, you should be able to empathize.

That being said, I get what you're getting at. It's a responsible gesture to redirect someone to professional assistance when you yourself are unsure. I don't know how you're going to sell that to Adcoms in terms of your prospective ability to practice medicine/be a competent physician. You didn't give us much on that front...

 

[Pusheen]

I think this is one of the reasons volunteering and having EC's is such a big deal.

The more you challenge yourself and get out there, the better you will be at understanding and empathizing with others who are different from you.

For example, suppose you have never experienced mental disability. If you work with the disabled and make an effort to learn and help them the best you can , you will simultaneously learn to empathize and understand their unique problems, and therefore be a more effective volunteer/doctor/caregiver.

 

[steelersfan1243]

I think this is one of the reasons volunteering and having EC's is such a big deal.

The more you challenge yourself and get out there, the better you will be at understanding and empathizing with others who are different from you.

For example, suppose you have never experienced mental disability. If you work with the disabled and make an effort to learn and help them the best you can , you will simultaneously learn to empathize and understand their unique problems, and therefore be a more effective volunteer/doctor/caregiver.

OP maybe you're confusing sympathy with empathy. Sympathy is when you feel a common emotion or connection. Empathy is the ability to understand someone else's pain and hardships by putting yourself in their shoes. As @Cotterpin alluded to, Medical schools want candidates who can empathize. Even though you could not have sympathy in your situation, you should be able to empathize.

That being said, I get what you're getting at. It's a responsible gesture to redirect someone to professional assistance when you yourself are unsure. I don't know how you're going to sell that to Adcoms in terms of your prospective ability to practice medicine/be a competent physician. You didn't give us much on that front...

I'm not sure I'm following you. Are you saying that if you haven't had the same experiences another person has had, there's no way to help them at all? Seems like you wouldn't be able to help very many people if that were true. Empathy doesn't mean that you literally have to experience the exact thing a person is going through. Empathy is about putting yourself in another person's shoes and trying to understand what they're feeling even if you haven't been through the same things.

So I guess I'm saying yes, it can definitely be viewed as a negative if you don't think you can empathize with people who have different experiences from yours.

Thanks for the reply guys. The reason I write this, so things are a but more clear, I am writing a "Why this medical school essay" The school focuses on "care for the whole individual." I was going to write how my experiences as a RA showed me that I was only able to empathize and help the individual, if I understood the problem at hand. The relationship, I could not relate, so could not help. Therefore, a school that focuses on learning to understand the factors that afflict individuals (upstream problems) resonate with my beliefs of how to achieve best care (only by understanding all the factors can a disease be treated).

Does this make sense?

 

[Pusheen]

Thanks for the reply guys. The reason I write this, so things are a but more clearer, I am writing a "Why this medical school essay" The school focuses on "care for the whole individual." I was going to write how my experiences as a RA showed me that I was only able to empathize and help the individual, if I understood the problem at hand. The relationship, I could not relate, so could not help. Therefore, a school that focuses on learning to understand the factors that afflict individuals (upstream problems) resonate with my beliefs of how to achieve best care (only by understanding all the factors can a disease be treated).

Does this make sense?

I personally wouldn't write it from the negative perspective (e.g. you couldn't help someone because you didnt understand them). Maybe think of an example where you actually were able to empathize and help someone and therefore "care for the whole individual"

 

[Cotterpin]

It sort of makes sense, but I agree with @Pusheen. It's probably risky to write about it from this negative angle. Adcoms might have the same initial reaction we all just had to it.

Why did you rewrite your entire opening post?

 

[steelersfan1243]

I personally wouldn't write it from the negative perspective (e.g. you couldn't help someone because you didnt understand them). Maybe think of an example where you actually were able to empathize and help someone and therefore "care for the whole individual"

Ahh, yes, I do not know why I did not think of writing it that way....secondaries are frying my brain, but thanks!

It sort of makes sense, but I agree with @Pusheen. It's probably risky to write about it from this negative angle. Adcoms might have the same initial reaction we all just had to it.

Why did you rewrite your entire opening post?

Lol, you said in your first post it was confusing? Sorry I probably should of have said I edited it afterwards.

Regardless, do medical schools accept the fact there will be cases where the inability to relate won't let someone to be of too much help? How does one gain the ability to empathize outside of actual experience and maybe even literature?

 

[Pusheen]

Ahh, yes, I do not know why I did not think of writing it that way....secondaries are frying my brain, but thanks!



Lol, you said in your first post it was confusing? Sorry I probably should of have said I edited it afterwards.

Regardless, do medical schools accept the fact there will be cases where the inability to relate won't let someone to be of too much help? How does one gain the ability to empathize outside of actual experience and maybe even literature?

I'm just a pre-med, so I won't speak for schools. I'm sure everyone realizes that no one is perfect. I would just suggest not focusing on what can go wrong and instead bringing attention to what can go right/what you have done right in the past.

EDIT well, that was responding to what you originally had out there, but you I think you get my point

 

[Cotterpin]

Regardless, do medical schools accept the fact there will be cases where the inability to relate won't let someone to be of too much help? How does one gain the ability to empathize outside of actual experience and maybe even literature?

Empathy, I believe, is developed through a combination of imagination, your own life experience, and spending time meeting and listening to the life experiences of people who are different from you.

Whatever you do, I just don't think it's a good idea to tell med schools that you think there are situations where you can't empathize with someone. Maybe you can't always give a person the exact help they need, but you can always try to empathize.

 

[Goro]

No.

Thanks for the reply guys. The reason I write this, so things are a but more clear, I am writing a "Why this medical school essay" The school focuses on "care for the whole individual." I was going to write how my experiences as a RA showed me that I was only able to empathize and help the individual, if I understood the problem at hand. The relationship, I could not relate, so could not help. Therefore, a school that focuses on learning to understand the factors that afflict individuals (upstream problems) resonate with my beliefs of how to achieve best care (only by understanding all the factors can a disease be treated).

Does this make sense?

 

[Cotterpin]

Lol, you said in your first post it was confusing? Sorry I probably should of have said I edited it afterwards.

I just saw that you edited this comment in as well.

I said I wasn't sure I was following your first post because I was trying to soften the critique I was about to make. It was rhetorical. I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. Not because the way you worded your original post was confusing. I just didn't want to bust in with a comment that read like "Are you high? That makes no sense." When you rewrote the whole thing, it left me feeling awkward because you removed specific things that I was addressing, like when you explicitly said that in some situations you can't empathize.

 

[LizzyM]

Schools that talk about treating the whole person mean approaching not jut the physical body but the mind (intellect) and spirit (psyche) as well.

While it is admirable to know your limits and to be humble enough to hand off a case that is too advanced for you, to suggest that you are unable to help people who have an issue you have not experienced would mean that you would be unable as an RA to help someone who had an unintended pregnancy, who had been raped, who lost a parent or sibling in a tragedy, if you yourself had not had a similar experience. If that were the standard to which RAs and others in the helping professions were held, there would be very few people qualified to help.

What you want to convey here is that you could look at someone who came to you with a problem such as a failed exam and understand that they are not only concerned about not mastering the material on the exam but how sad or depressed they feel about failing and perhaps recognizing that noting that they feel sick to their stomach, or having a loss of appetite or a headache is a physical manifestation of their problem. If they came to you as a RA looking for an over the counter remedy for a headache you might be authorized to give them that or direct them to other resources but treating the whole person would mean asking "so how are things going" which might bring out the larger story of school difficulties and feelings of worthlessness and providing "first aid" and referral for those as well.