One of the primary goals in oncological medical care is the quality of human communication, but if this communication is deficient, the possibility of conflicts will increase. A high percentage of medical complaints and conflicts are based on poor quality effective communication, which generates a bad relationship between the doctor and the oncology patient, diminishes the patient’s adaptation to treatment, and increases the doctor’s dissatisfaction.
In everyday life, effective communication is a fundamental skill for the optimal development of our personal relationships; it is the element that allows us to establish, maintain, and improve contact with others and with ourselves, aiming to achieve an adequate and specific outcome.
For many years, poor communication quality has been a constant in the medical community, adversely affecting patient care. The difficulty of not doing it well, not having adequate preparation to communicate, the fear of being accused or causing pain, among others, are some of the difficulties healthcare professionals face in providing effective communication.
One way to seek a solution to the problem of ineffective communication is the pursuit of empathy, as this facilitates therapeutic adherence in treatment and is essential for the correct management of diseases like cancer.
In many medical manuals and guides, we find that empathy is synonymous with achieving good communication. This could confuse us into thinking that good communication means providing an adequate diagnosis or answering the patient’s questions, or being free of conflicts in the doctor-patient relationship. But is merely answering the patient’s questions and concerns enough to achieve adequate empathetic communication? What is empathy really? Do we truly manage to empathize with oncology patients as healthcare professionals in our active practice?
Empathy requires understanding another person’s emotions or a very intimate point of view; it doesn’t mean we have to have something intimate with the patient, but rather have the ability to understand what they think and feel. That is, we must develop skills to create a connection with the patient, but to achieve this, we must connect with something within ourselves that resembles the patient’s feeling or demand. Only then can we understand and communicate effectively with the patient.
A primary part of achieving empathy is respecting and understanding the patient’s lived perspective as something real. We must remember that cancer is a disease that alters the patient’s life not merely in the physical and emotional order, but also in the economic and social aspects, so the exchange of ideas and concerns unrelated to the disease are also important points to consider in the communication process.
Another fundamental aspect in achieving empathy is based on not judging the patient; we must respect the patient’s personal and spiritual beliefs. That is, as healthcare professionals, we must recognize and respect these beliefs even if they obstruct medical treatment.
Active listening, optimal management of information and spaces, respecting the patient’s tears and silence, and above all, understanding that the patient has control over the disease and not the medical team—that is, understanding the patient’s decisions—is also an effective way to achieve effective and empathetic communication with the patient.
Perhaps this last point is one of the biggest obstacles in achieving empathy: having the capacity to respect the patient’s decision regarding their illness. We must understand that the patient participates in the processes involved; therefore, the healthcare professional must understand that this is a patient’s right, that we must recognize our limits as professionals, and remember that our job is to do something with the patient, not just to the patient.
Therefore, the importance of seeking empathy in the dynamics of medical communication lies in its benefits: a more human relationship between the doctor and the oncology patient, fewer victimizing and rejecting behaviors from the patient, fewer conflict situations, and a perception of trust and positive adaptation to medical treatment by the patient.