Pear Pressure: A Medical Student’s Introduction to Empathy

By: Caroline Green

A medical student learns about empathy from a busy pediatrician who advised her that learning from patients’ stories can be more important than giving medications.

I fill the hours leading up to a novel experience by creating ridiculous stories about the person or place I’m about to see for the first time. After the occasion passes, I then take a few minutes to reflect on how my expectations lived up to reality. I’m sure it’s some sort of psychological defense mechanism evolutionarily adapted because it allays the most disconcerting of all human emotions, fear of the unknown.

If I imagine myself spewing wine all over my friend’s family’s Thanksgiving turkey after starting to laugh while taking a sip of chardonnay, the reality always seems much calmer and the experience a little, well, duller…unless, of course, my wildest imagination turns out to match the reality. This became the case for my first clinical instructor.

The pediatric hematology unit

Day One with Dr. R in a pediatric hematology unit. I had plenty of preconceived, wild notions in my head about this mysterious doctor. He was my ambulatory care preceptor, the only clinician with whom I would directly interact in a hospital setting during my…