Humanism in Healthcare: A Pathway to Compassionate Care and Resilience

Within the health professions, humanity lies at the heart of care. Being human is a complex experience that includes physical, emotional, intellectual, social, and spiritual dimensions. As humans, we communicate complex thoughts and ideas and seek purpose and meaning in life. We have the capacity for rational thought, creativity, decency, and ethical decision-making. Being human is about our capacity to think, feel, and connect meaningfully with others. At its best, healthcare transcends diagnosis and treatment and embraces the holistic care of people in a manner that honors humanity – both the patients and the providers.

Humanism in medicine is an approach to healthcare that emphasizes the importance of the human experience in medical practice. Humanism has been at the heart of medicine since Hippocrates and is centered on values like dignity, respect, compassion, and empathy. The fundamental principles of humanism include compassion, respect for self and others, holistic care, effective communication, and ethical practice. The characteristics of humanism include honesty, empathy, compassion, selflessness, personal connections, respect, self-awareness, and emotional expression. Humanism is about embodying these principles and characteristics when interacting with others, especially those who are suffering. Humanism in medicine encourages healthcare providers to see patients as whole individuals, considering their emotional, social, and spiritual needs alongside their physical health rather than focusing solely on the biological aspects of disease and treatment.

For healthcare providers to effectively deliver compassionate and empathetic care, it is equally important that they honor their own humanity. This can be one of the most challenging aspects of medicine. In a moment of crisis, there is no space for honoring the provider’s feelings and needs, and decades of training have prepared providers to shut off their own feelings and needs so that they can attend to the situation at hand. It’s in the moments after an emergency has been attended to or the patient has been treated that there needs to be space to acknowledge the provider’s own humanity. Through the practice of honoring their own humanity, providers can maintain the resilience needed to navigate the demands of their profession. Practicing humanism in medicine helps to prevent burnout and enhances the provider’s ability to connect with patients on a deeper level, offering truly patient-centered care.

The ability to embody the principles and characteristics of humanism begins with self-awareness. Self-awareness is the ability to stop and pay attention to your thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and needs which in turn helps a person to foster the ability to be there for others. If a provider is unwell and pushes through as they’ve been trained to do, this tends to be when medical errors and complaints about provider communication ensue. The practice of asking for help or communicating when unwell is only possible when healthcare organizations prioritize humanism and foster a workplace culture where staff feel safe, valued, supported, and respected. Providers who are mindful of their well-being and emotional needs are better equipped to manage stress, avoid burnout, tend to their own well-being, and ultimately show up as caring and compassionate human beings.

The ability to be self-aware is deeply intertwined with emotional depth. Every human being experiences a vast spectrum of emotions—joy, love, fear and sorrow—that shape our relationships, decisions, and overall life experiences. When we as humans shut off to these emotions, we become robots instead of living, breathing humans. It is in honoring that we are human and have emotions that help us to show kindness, empathy, and compassion in times of suffering for others. Health professionals often support people in some of their darkest moments, and if they haven’t cultivated the ability to go deep within themselves, they will not be able to meet others in their depths.

Humanism can help mitigate burnout, especially in healthcare settings with high demands and emotional toll. Burnout, characterized by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a reduced sense of personal accomplishment, is common among healthcare providers. Humanism, emphasizing compassion, empathy, and connection, which can help mitigate and prevent burnout in several ways.

First, humanism restores meaning and purpose to healthcare workers by encouraging providers to reconnect with the deeper reasons they chose their profession—to care for the well-being of others. This renewed sense of purpose can counteract feelings of depersonalization and enhance job satisfaction as providers build more meaningful and rewarding relationships with their patients. By focusing on the human aspects of their interactions, healthcare professionals can find greater fulfillment in their roles, helping to combat the sense of isolation and emotional fatigue that often accompanies burnout.

A humanistic approach also helps to reduce depersonalization by encouraging providers to see patients as individuals with unique emotions, experiences and needs rather than just tasks or cases. This approach fosters more personal and empathetic interactions, diminishing the detachment contributing to burnout. Humanism encourages open communication and support among healthcare teams, promoting a culture where providers feel comfortable sharing their challenges and emotional struggles, reducing feelings of isolation and helping to create a community of care and support among team members.

Humanism strengthens emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize, understand, and manage one’s own emotions while also empathizing with the emotions of others. Every human being has a deep desire to feel seen and heard. By becoming more aware of one’s own emotions, one can become more attuned to another’s emotions. Cultivating emotional intelligence impacts relationships with self, colleagues, and patients. This ability to tolerate and be with emotions is a powerful medicine.

Humanism requires practices like mindfulness and self-compassion, which help providers manage stress, anxiety, self-criticism, compassion fatigue, and burnout. Reflective practice allows providers to process complex emotional experiences, gain perspective, draw strength during challenging situations, and deal with failures and mistakes. These practices help providers resource themselves so that they can show up for the people they work with.

Humanism in healthcare is not just a philosophy; it is a practical and necessary approach to care that enhances emotional resilience, restores meaning, fosters supportive environments, and promotes holistic well-being. Systemic factors contributing to burnout, such as heavy workloads and administrative burdens, are rampant in medical systems. While humanism alone cannot address all of these challenges, it does advocate for systemic changes that prioritize patient and provider well-being. In environments where compassion and care are central, patients and providers benefit from more meaningful and nurturing interactions, reducing the emotional toll leading to burnout.

By placing humanity at the center of healthcare, we create a system that improves the quality of care and upholds the ethical and moral foundations of the healthcare profession. As F. Erhart aptly said, “Yet, it was the purest manifestation of empathy, compassionate care, and love toward a fellow human being. In other words, that day we practiced medicine.” By honoring both the humanity of their patients and their own, healthcare providers can sustain a compassionate, effective, and fulfilling practice.

References

Erhart F. (2023). 2023 Hope Babette Tang Humanism in Healthcare Essay Contest: First-Place Medical Student Essay: The Nail Salon. Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, 98(12), 1394–1395. https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000005423

Giaever, F., Lohmann-Lafrenz, S., & Løvseth, L. T. (2016). Why do hospital physicians attend work while ill? The spiraling effect of positive and negative factors. BMC health services research, 16(1), 548. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-016-1802-y

Hulail, M. (2018). Humanism in medical practice: What, why, and how? Hospice & Palliative Medicine International Journal, 2(6), 336-339. https://doi.org/10.15406/hpmij.2018.02.00119

Lee Roze des Ordons, A., de Groot, J. M., Rosenal, T., Viceer, N., & Nixon, L. (2018). How clinicians integrate humanism in their clinical workplace-‘Just trying to put myself in their human being shoes’. Perspectives on medical education, 7(5), 318–324. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40037-018-0455-4

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