Fascinating article in the New York Times: How Mindfulness Can Make for Better Doctors. It's about the results of a study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, that had as its objective "To determine whether an intensive educational program in mindfulness, communication, and self-awareness is associated with improvement in primary care physicians' well-being, psychological distress, burnout, and capacity for relating to patients." Not surprisingly, it did improve these metrics among the docs. And, according to the NYT article, "Several of the improvements persisted even after the yearlong course ended. And, those changes correlated with a significant increase in attributes that contribute to patient-centered care, such as empathy and valuing the psychosocial factors that might affect a patient’s illness experience."
We may just need more of this type of education, even if it is a little "soft" for a lot of grantors. And by we, I'm including you and I, not just docs. (Thanks to Patti Digh for the link on this Thinking Thursday post.)
