Jewish Values, Empathy, and the Doctor-Patient Relationship

Patients who suffer from serious illness need doctors and nurses who are both technically skilled and capable of engaging with them and with their families on a human level. The emotional burden associated with care for the sick, though, is high and may lead clinicians to adopt distancing behaviors that leave patients feeling isolated and alienated. I offer examples from my own 30-year experience as a medical oncologist and suggest that aspects of religious thought and practice may help clinicians maintain a sense of connection and purpose. Specifically, I propose that modern Jewish thought, exemplified by the writing of Martin Buber, is one useful way to understand the underlying the significance of a clinician-patient encounter and the character traits required in clinical practice. Empathy in patient care, Buber might argue, is humanistic action that reflects an often-unacknowledged religious sensibility. Curricula that encourage open-minded dialogue between religious voices and secular medical scientists, ethicists, and practitioners, religion as source of focused concern for the other, offers the hope of promoting ever more competent, respectful, and empathic care of the sick. Religion in this understanding is grounded in hopeful appreciation rather than in dogmatic certainty.