Mindful Medicine
When I scrub in to perform a kidney transplant, I do more than clean my hands—I clear my mind.
I use that time to make a shift from being a dean and health care leader to being a surgeon.
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Physician Group |
Washing hands becomes not only a practical act but also a transition point: the point where I prepare myself to be completely present for my patient. Isn’t that what he or she expects and deserves? Isn’t that what I want to provide as a physician, not just when performing a transplant but equally when I enter an exam room for a “routine” follow-up or to support a patient and family during a difficult diagnosis?
Our daily demands, concerns, and conflicts in the workplace all conspire against us. How do we as physicians and care providers create the capacity, space, and resiliency to detach from this conspiracy of competing needs, focus our attention, and connect with a spirit of empathy as we enter that room? How do we do this day in and day out over the course of our professional lives?
The traditions and emerging science of mindfulness and compassion training offer us both a mindset and a practical approach to develop our awareness, train our attention, and practice our empathic compassion for others and ourselves. Across Emory School of Medicine and Emory Healthcare, we have been applying and studying mindfulness concepts in formal and informal ways, from medical student education to surgical safety checklists.
Emory has been fortunate to have the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, as a Presidential Distinguished Professor on our campus for many years, which led to a dynamic dialogue between modern scientific knowledge and Tibetan traditions and values. From this dialogue, Geshe Lobsang Tenzin Negi, PhD, an Emory faculty member, former monk, and director of the Emory-Tibet Partnership, developed the Cognitively Based Compassion Training (CBCT) program—a series of lectures and practices that aim to “cultivate a greater sense of closeness and connectedness with others, strengthen compassionate concern while avoiding related distress from empathic fatigue … and foster kindness, gratitude, generosity, and warm-heartedness.” A number of our faculty, deans, and staff took the course, and we now offer it to our second-year medical students. We also have designated a quiet space for meditation and reflection at our medical school.
Practicing mindfulness promotes health and well-being—not only in our patients, but also in ourselves and in our teams—by enabling us to be more compassionate, clear-minded, and present. It is a discipline that can help us continue to improve how we care for our patients, care for one another, and care for ourselves. And learning that discipline can begin with an act as simple as pausing and clearing your mind before you walk into the next room.
Editor’s note: This letter is adapted from Dr. Christian Larsen’s Viewpoint essay, “Mindful Medicine,” in the September 2015 issue of the Association of American Medical Colleges’ Reporter.
