Compassion in Healthcare with Dr. Stephen Trzeciak
Compassionate Accountability Podcast - A podcast by Nate Regier
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Dr. Nathan Regier is pleased to be joined to this episode by Dr. Stephen Trzeciak to talk about compassion research, interesting, relevant and applicable research about compassion in health care. Stephen Trzeciak, MD, MPH, is a physician-scientist, chief of medicine at Cooper University Health Care, and Professor and Chair of Medicine at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University in Camden, N.J. Dr. Trzeciak is a practicing intensivist (specialist in intensive care medicine), and a National Institute of Health (NIH)-funded clinical researcher with more than 100 publications in scientific literature.
In today’s episode you will hear about Dr. Trzeciak’s research which is focused on a new field called “Compassionomics,” in which he studied the scientific effects of clinical compassion on patients, patient care, and those who care for patients. He is the author of the best-selling book: “Compassionomics: The Revolutionary Scientific Evidence that Caring Makes a Difference.” Broadly, Trzeciak’s mission is to make healthcare more compassionate through science.
Key Takeaways:
[2:41] Dr. Stephen Trzeciak explains what an “intensivist” is.
[3:28] Dr. Trzeciak shares how he became interested in compassion.
[7:40] Dr. Trzeciak talks about how his research on compassion became a book.
[8:20] Why there is a compassion crisis in healthcare.
[9:06] Compassion matters in meaningful and measurable ways.
[10:35] What is behind the compassion crisis?
[11:06] Differences between compassion and empathy.
[16:10] ⅓ of Americans admit that compassion is not one of their core values.
[17:25] People are emotionally exhausted and they just can’t seem to care.
[18:29] Compassionate behaviors can be learned.
[22:37] The neuroscience data that supports the distinction between empathy and compassion.
[27:58] The best antidote to burnout is more compassion.
[31:39] Healthcare providers who show compassionate behaviors build resilience and resistance to burnout.
[33:40] The matter of time: It takes less than a minute to make a meaningful impact on a patient.
[35:36] The different uses of time and how they are perceived.
[37:14] Dr. Stephen Trzeciak talks about the time when he realized he had every symptom of burnout and decided he was going to care more and not less.
[41:07] The declaration of interdependence.
[42:50] Lighting round.
[48:45] Nate’s three key takeaways:
- Empathy and compassion are different.
- The antidote for burnout has to be at the point of care.
- Compassion is an evolutionary advantage.
Mentioned in this episode:
Compassionomics: The Revolutionary Scientific Evidence that Caring Makes a Difference. Dr. Stephen Trzeciak
Dr. Stephen Trzeciak’s TED Talk at the University of Pennsylvania
