Abstract
IntroductionHumanism has been identified as an important contributor to patient care and physician wellness; however, what humanism means in the context of medicine has been limited by opinion and a focus on personal characteristics. Our aim was to describe attitudes and behaviours that enable clinicians to integrate humanism within the clinical setting.MethodsWe conducted semi-structured individual interviews with ten clinical faculty to explore how they enact and experience humanism in patient care and clinical teaching. Interpretive description was used to analyze the data qualitatively.ResultsHumanism in medicine was described through five themes representing core attitudes and behaviours: whole person care, valuing, perspective-taking, recognizing universality, and relational focus. Whole person care involved recognizing the multiple dimensions of personhood and sensitivity to others’ needs; valuing involved respecting and appreciating others; perspective-taking consisted of considering others’ perspectives, suspending judgment, and listening; recognizing universality involved acknowledging the shared human condition, finding common ground, transcending roles, and humility; and relational focus was described through multiple relationships between patients, families, clinicians and learners, becoming part of another’s story, reciprocal influence, and accompaniment.ConclusionsWhereas previous descriptions of humanism have focused on clinicians’ personal qualities, our research describes a number of attitudinal and behavioural foundations of humanistic care and teaching, grounded in the experiences of clinical faculty. In drawing attention to the holistic and relational elements of humanism, our work highlights how these foundational elements can be more explicitly integrated into patient care, workplace culture, and clinical education.
Highlights
Humanism has been identified as an important contributor to patient care and physician wellness; what humanism means in the context of medicine has been limited by opinion and a focus on personal characteristics
Humanism has been identified as a core tenet of patient care and physician wellness
Personal qualities are less amenable to assessment, feedback and coaching, limiting our ability to explicitly integrate humanism into the formal curriculum
Summary
Humanism has been identified as an important contributor to patient care and physician wellness; what humanism means in the context of medicine has been limited by opinion and a focus on personal characteristics. Medical students and residents have noticed a lack of compassion in some of their preceptors’ interactions with patients [7, 8]; others report incidents of harassment and discrimination from preceptors, leading to psychological distress and impact on career choice [9] Both trainees and physicians in practice experience high rates of burnout, characterized by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a reduced sense of accomplishment, with personal and professional consequences [10, 11]. One study analyzed the written narratives of physicians who were considered to be ‘highly humanistic’ and identified that they responded to challenges with intuitive and/or deliberate behaviours that strengthened relationships and benefited others, such as recognizing distress in patients and learners, and responding by offering comfort or sharing their own experiences, respectively Their actions were aligned with and reaffirmed deeply held beliefs and values, for example, compassion and integrity [16]. We set out to explore how clinicians recognized for their humanistic qualities integrate humanism into patient care and medical education within their routine clinical teaching practice environments
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