The Impact of Compassionate Care on Patient Wellbeing

What makes a nurse? Is it their expertise? Their professionalism? Is it how many patients they’ve saved or the number of years they’ve spent at any one hospital? Or maybe it’s the prestige of the hospital they work for? Perhaps it’s just a title?

Whatever you may believe, we understand a nurse as someone who works in healthcare and is responsible for meeting the day-to-day needs of patients with kindness and compassion.

You may dispute that definition with some horror story of some ineffective, arrogant, uncaring nurse, which is valid, some nurses shouldn’t be in the industry. A lack of bedside manner and a total lack of empathy misses one of the most integral parts of healthcare – kindness and compassion are an intrinsic part of health and healing. You can do the best online FNP program you can find, but if you’re not kind, you’re not doing your full job as a nurse.

Nursing is one of the most stressful jobs that someone can do. It’s a demanding industry that has people on their feet all day, tending to the needs and occasionally inappropriate or unnecessary demands of total strangers, being treated in disrespectful ways during their duties. Breaks often have to be interrupted as nurses respond to emergency scenarios, as well as time being called in on days off, working overtime, and needing to juggle a thousand different responsibilities.

Nurses deserve our admiration, gratitude, and sympathy. Most of the time, the people who work as nurses fully understand what they are getting into before they embark on their journey into healthcare. However, it seems that not everybody may have had an accurate expectation of nursing.

Whether these people simply watched too much Grey’s Anatomy or Scrubs, it seems that some people thought that nursing would be low-pressure or easy; only to be bitterly disappointed with the reality. Of course that is just speculation. The research shows that displaying indifference, nonchalance, and such behaviour is detrimental not just to patient experience, but also to the efficacy of their colleagues.

This means that when you’re dealing with a rude, impatient, arrogant, or aggressive healthcare worker, it is likely that their colleague’s work is likewise being affected. In other words, rude behaviour in healthcare puts patients at increased risk.

When you work in healthcare, you’re working with people that are already on a downer. No one goes to the hospital for fun or a holiday. No one wants to be in that hospital bed using a buzzer to call someone to help them go to the toilet.

So imagine when they finally move past their insecurities to call for help, only to be met with indifference and dialogue delivered with a forked tongue.

The thing about healthcare is that it demands unobstructed kindness and patience from the people in the industry. Those who fail to deliver either of these are not only ignoring one of the most important parts of their jobs – but they’re adversely affecting the recovery of their patients and their colleagues’ mental health.

Possibly the most staggering thing about this is that the effects of compassion on someone ill or struggling aren’t lost on anyone. We’ve all had dark moments in our lives, whether that be an illness or a mentally trying period. When we’ve had those moments, it’s not uncommon to reach out to a special someone who knows just how to support us. It’s not always a matter of fixing or finding practical solutions, it’s usually just about being there, listening, and extending a sympathetic ear or shoulder to cry on.

We’ve all been a victim of bullying at one point or another. At some point, everyone will go through the experience of having their experience belittled or invalidated. The inability to help yourself and therefore having to rely on others is often embarrassing, and can sometimes even feel dehumanizing.

To be stuck in a hospital bed with a condition you can’t help, to be in pain, in strife, to force yourself to ask for help only to be met with a total lack of understanding and compassion is utterly humiliating, and healthcare professionals that lack this quality are doing themselves and their patients a grave disservice.

After all, kindness is not difficult. Evolutionary science dictates that empathy and altruism are core components of our survival as a species. It’s hardwired into our DNA to offer those suffering a reprieve, not only through physical practicality but through emotional nurturing.

Treating patients with compassion should be a foremost concern for all healthcare professionals, as all evidence suggests not only does it negatively affect the patient’s state of being, but it also affects other staff members and makes them more complacent in their duties; thereby putting other patients at risk.