Compassion. In the nursing business, we hear a lot about it. Merriam-Webster (online) defines "compassion" in this way:
Pronunciation: \kəm-ˈpa-shən\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French or Late Latin; Anglo-French, from Late Latin compassion-, compassio, from compati to sympathize, from Latin com- + pati to bear, suffer -more at patient
Date: 14th century
: sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it
As nurses, we are expected to provide compassionate care. But what does this look like?
I am convinced that in the patient's (and/or their family members') eyes, this means being nice, sympathetic, and caring; providing a gentle touch, a sympathetic ear, a warm blanket.
These things are important, yet nursing demands so much more of us. Together with behaving in a caring way toward our patients, we must coordinate care for a group of patients, including but not limited to timely administration of medications, awareness of the nursing implications of each medication, ensuring that ordered diagnostics are carried out, lab specimens are obtained, awareness of the results of diagnostics and lab tests and what those results mean to the individual patient, and of course, responding appropriately to changes in patient condition. We must continually assess, plan, intervene, and evaluate.
I will admit that I bristle a little bit when, just moments after entering the room and before I've even had a chance to introduce myself, I am asked by an anxious family member if Mom, who has a fractured femoral neck and is awaiting an ortho consult, can have some soup. "They said they would get her some soup", the family member says in that tone of voice that is at once pleading and accusatory. I inhale deeply and slowly, measuring each word carefully as I explain why I can't feed Mom.
I find myself making the same stupid joke over and over again, as patient after patient complains about how hard the gurneys are. "I hear that a lot", I say, or "Nope, they're not built for comfort", trying not to sound flippant. Do I dare explain that the reason the gurneys are hard is so that we can do effective chest compressions should they go into cardiac arrest? Do I dare tell them that if they are able to complain about how hard the gurney is, then they're doing okay? While it might alleviate some of my pent up stress to be this truthful, which is the more compassionate response? The pat little joke, or the truthful answer?
As I hurry past the family member hovering at the doorway, intentionally avoiding making eye contact with them as they attempt to flag down anyone in scrubs to ask how long before the doctor comes or request another cup of ice chips, I know how uncaring this must appear. Yet I know that it would be far less caring to allow myself to be pulled in another direction while my patient down the hall is waiting for pain relief or life saving treatment.
The Dalai Lama says "True compassion is not just an emotional response but a firm commitment founded on reason."
To me, this means that providing compassionate nursing care is not exemplified by how many warm blankets, bowls of soup, and cups of ice chips I can bring. It's not about how many cold washcloths I can place on fevered brows, or how quickly I can bring the bedside commode.
To me, compassionate nursing care requires the ability to synthesize information, prioritize, and multitask, while behaving kindly toward those under my care. I must choose, based on reason, where my attention is most needed in any given moment in order to do the most good.
Sometimes this means that the guy in room 13 who has had back pain for 6 months and has decided to come in tonight, who has threatened to sue the doctor if he doesn't get what he wants, and is calling out "NURSE!!!" to everyone that walks by is going to get the door to his room shut, while I attend to the little old lady next door who is having a stroke. Sometimes this means that I can't change Dad's soiled briefs, because I am receiving a patient who came in by ambulance with acute onset chest pain and ST elevation.
And please, family members, don't try and trick me. If you tell me that Mom needs to eat because she's diabetic, this will not make a meal tray magically appear. I'm going to ask what kind of medications Mom takes for her diabetes and when was her last dose, and I'm going to do a fingerstick. The time I spend doing this is time that I could be giving to someone else who needs my attention more. And when it turns out that Mom is diet controlled and takes no insulin or oral agents, and I've wasted all this time to make sure she is safe, do not be surprised if I seem a little less than compassionate as I walk out the door. But I digress.
Compassion; it's a buzzword that hospitals like to use to bolster their image and attract "customers" (another buzzword that I won't address here). Unfortunately, compassion means something different depending on where you stand.
RNMLIS
71 Posts
I have been thinking about compasion
What is compassion How does one show compassion?
I hear your frustration we want to care for our patients but with all the expectations placed on nursing...
but yikes!
Is your facility really 'pushing' compassion?
Compassion is a high expectation Compassion may be a goal an ideal. Remember progress not perfection...
When I was nursing and when I was a patient what I experienced/witnessed, I was pressured to focus on customer service customer service customer service....at work
To me compassion is so beyond 'caring' it is so much deeper
When I have experienced compassion while nursing It was an indescribable deep It was a compelling feeling a deep and in the moment act - to touch to listen to hold another in your heart and hands and to do so there must be a focus on that person their pain or need- it is in the moment and fleeting
I find it difficult to express real compassion which is beyond caring in the nursing environment
all the demands on our time take us 'outside' of ourselves. We rarely have the capacity to be so/that inside/outside ourselves and on that level of awareness.
We so often 'check/censor' ourselves andall of this blocks compassion
We care, we care deeply but do not function on that level as we hustle about our minds racing ahead to the next task.
Compassion literally means to feel with, to suffer with. Everyone is capable of compassion, and yet everyone tends to avoid it because it's uncomfortable. And the avoidance produces psychic numbing -- resistance to experiencing our pain for the world and other beings.
The act of compassion begins with full attention. You have to really see/feel the person. If you tune into the other person and, feel something of their experience you feel with them. If empathy arises, and if that person is in need, then empathic concern can come. You want to help them, and then that begins a compassionate act. So I'd say that compassion begins with attention towards another
Pema Chodron:
When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless, that it doesn't have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space.
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>Thomas Aquinas:
>I would rather feel compassion than know the meaning of it.
Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama:
Compassion is the radicalism of our time. Everyone is capable of compassion, and yet everyone tends to avoid it because it's uncomfortable. And the avoidance produces psychic numbing -- resistance to experiencing our pain for the world and other beings.
>Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama:
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth
Leo Buscaglia:
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
so this is how I feel about compassion and no facility can command compassion