Empathy and compassion are major aspects of caring for people. Although these concepts are closely related, they do not mean the same thing. Empathy is being aware and trying to understand other people’s emotions, while compassion is a response that drives one to help others. Health care professionals often have the need to help and care for others and that is why they chose this profession. Health care professionals may empathize and try to understand how their client’s and their families are feeling to better help them. They also use their desire to help others, or compassion, to make them excellent at what they do.
Nurses spend the most time with patients in a hospital setting; they are trusted and known to have empathy and compassion. Having a caring nurse who can understand how you’re feeling and have the need to help you, can make all of the difference in the world. When a patient is sick, or struggling, they often need the help or care of someone else to push through. Nurses can encourage a patient, even in the smallest of ways. Knowing you have a nurse who supports you, cares whether or not you get better, and tries to understand how you are feeling can put you in a mindset ready to fight and succeed. Client outcomes with health care professionals who display compassion and empathy are better than those who do not. That caring nurse or health care professional can drive a client to more positive thinking and working harder to heal. A positive support system from a health care team is essential to patient care.
Watson’s Carative factors are 10 key points that outline how to put heart-filled care into practice. They explain the many ways in which nurses put caring into action to help their patients. These factors show that caring for a client is more than just going through the motions. It needs to be thoughtful and catered toward the individual patient with empathy and compassion. An example is, “developing and sustaining a helping-trusting, authentic caring relationship” (Watson, 2020). This point puts an emphasis on a relationship between client and professional where there is trust and caring involved. Patients want to be able to trust their health care providers and believe that they are caring for them in the best possible way to suit their needs. Having a trusting relationship allows both members to feel comfortable and able to communicate in the most effective way. Empathy is also talked about in the Carative factors like in this piece that states, “… attempting to stay within other’s frame of reference” (Watson, 2020). Empathy is about understanding another’s emotions or thoughts and this points out that it is important to focus on an individual’s understanding and provide care based on that. Everyone is unique and that means everyone’s care should be individualized to them. Nurses use empathy to understand what their clients are going through and use their compassion to best care for them. Watson’s Carative factors focus on those aspects and emphasize the number of ways this can be achieved.
During my first clinical experience I tried using compassion and empathy in every experience I was able to. This was true with the patients I was assigned to, clients who used their call bell, or patients I got to perform special tasks with. I believe that every person I came in contact with deserved the best possible care I could give them, whether it was a quick interaction or a whole day.
One example of a time that I practiced empathy and compassion was during a therapeutic conversation with one of my patients. Each clinical, I would try to spend some time just having conversations with clients and listening to anything they wanted to tell me. I know that the nurses and CNAs have so many patients that need assistance with many different tasks. It can be challenging for them to sit down and communicate with a client, so I took the time to do just that. There is one client in particular that I had great conversations with. I listened to this patient’s concerns about care, talked to them about their support system, and got to hear about their passions. As I was listening, I tried to place myself into their shoes. I wanted to respond in a way that would make them feel better and so that they would know I was truly hearing them. I think it was clear that I had empathy in this situation, and I used my compassion to help comfort them.
In the future I would like to continue having therapeutic conversations like this in clinical and while practicing as a registered nurse. I believe that having someone to talk to and who truly listens to you can be therapeutic and calming. As I continue providing therapeutic conversation with my clients, I’m sure I will only improve. With any nursing skill, practice and experience is needed to become fully competent. I feel as though I have a good foundation for this skill, and I am looking forward to improving it with each new experience I have. I will continue learning more nursing interventions and I will understand the role of a nurse more thoroughly in time. With this knowledge, I will be able to communicate and better help my patients with their needs.
Considering what I have learned in this class, my other classes, clinical, and my personal experiences, I plan to give my patients and their families my most caring self. I want each person who has an interaction with me to end it on a good note. I hope to be the nurse that clients look forward to seeing and who they know they can trust for caring, competent care. I will take each patient as an individual, base my care on what their needs are, and focus on what they want and need. Using empathy, I will try my best to understand how they are feeling and where they are coming from. This will allow me to then take my compassion and caring ways to care for them exactly how they need. I have seen first-hand how a nurse can take a terrible situation and make a client and their family feel better. My family has experienced this with a nurse who advocated for us, because she listened to all of our concerns and fought for us. I look up to her and hope to someday be that person for a family who is experiencing a challenging time. A nurse can be a light in the darkest of times. I hope to be that light for my patients.
Reference
10 Caritas Processes®. (2020, August 13). Retrieved November 12, 2020, from
