If surgery, medication and other treatments aren’t working for a patient, physicians may want to try a little tenderness. Kindness in healthcare settings can translate to better outcomes, less pain and anxiety and a faster healing process, among other benefits, a new report explains.
“The statistical significance of kindness-oriented care on improved outcomes was larger than the effect of aspirin on reducing a heart attack or smoking on male mortality,” noted Dr. James Doty, director of Stanford University School of Medicine’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. He and colleagues authored a literature review of studies on the impact of kindness in healthcare that was presented last week during the inaugural Compassion in Healthcare Conference in San Francisco.
Even in the absence of a cure, kindness may promote healing by restoring hope and a connection to something greater, the authors concluded.
“Caring, listening and communicating clearly are just as important as the medicine doctors and nurses deliver,” Doty said.
And it seems the public takes kindly to the concept. Consider a photo that went viral when it was posted online in February, of an Idaho doctor wrapped in a bear hug by Andrew Hanson. Less than a year after Hanson and his wife, Amanda, suffered the loss of their first child, the viral image depicted an elated Hanson hugging Dr. Bryan Hodges of St. Luke’s Hospital in Boise, moments after the healthy birth of the couple’s second baby.
