Graphic: 123rf.com
Last week, I attended a health screening and was struck by how medical staff handled everything happening around them, including all the unexpected tasks that kept popping up. The experience brought back a conversation from months ago, where someone suggested I run an “empathy workshop” for doctors, feeling the medical field needed help in this area.
I appreciated the suggestion but, having family members in the medical and health professions, I know how tough it can be to juggle so much day-to-day tasks, let alone the challenges that arise along the way.
I’m not sure about anyone else, but if I worked the hours of medical professionals and carried that level of responsibility while being expected to perform flawlessly, I don’t know if I’d be in a position to talk to anyone about empathy.
It’s easy to judge from the outside, but spending time in a medical facility shows you a completely different picture. Every doctor, nurse, and specialist are just as human as the rest of us – but usually under way more pressure than most people deal with daily.
They're balancing their own relationships, family lives, and personal struggles, yet they show up every day to take care of others. What might look like lack of empathy from the outside is often just them trying to stay professional while juggling everything at once.
In my experience, most medical staff have been helpful and supportive. On the rare occasions when they weren't, I try to remember that they might be going through something tough or working their third twelve-hour shift in a row.
While it doesn’t excuse rude behaviour, it helps to think about why someone might be acting that way, especially when they're stressed or burning out.
Healthcare workers can't just take a break when things get overwhelming – their job is to keep going and handle whatever comes their way. They often work with barely any rest, make decisions that could change lives, and somehow keep their cool through all of it.
They see people suffering every day but have to stay strong for their patients, knowing any mistake could have serious consequences. And still, they keep showing up.
During my screening, I watched nurses answering questions from co-workers while walking between rooms and quickly pointing lost patients in the right direction, all without breaking their stride. It really showed me how much we take for granted the people who look after our wellbeing.
Whether they’re in healthcare, teaching, or any helping profession, they make a bigger difference than we realise. Watching them work, I thought they could probably do with a good nap more than a workshop about empathy.
This whole experience taught me something important about how we judge others – we usually only see a tiny piece of their day. When we take time to look at things from a different perspective, we often find there’s a lot more going on than we first thought.
My old supervisor once told me something that has stuck with me. He said it's easy to be empathetic when people are being easy to deal with. Real empathy comes from trying to understand people when they're at their most difficult.
This can be challenging if we’re feeling stressed or frustrated ourselves. Toward the end of my screening, I had to wait for a few hours for the report to be ready, as one doctor was tending to another issue. As time went on, I felt increasingly frustrated, and that’s OK – I’m a long way from sainthood.
Rather than pretend I wasn’t feeling the frustration, or trying to rationalise it away, I focused the frustration on the experience of waiting instead of directing it toward the doctor or other staff members.
When the report was finalised, the nurses were apologetic for my wait and I thanked them for their assistance throughout the day, thankful that it would be another year before I had to run on a treadmill without coffee.
On the other hand, the doctors and nurses and other hospital staff would return to work the next day and the next day after that, dealing with challenges and supporting people non-stop.
Empathy isn't missing in healthcare. Like any field, it’s full of people doing their best for others and to get through each day. Unlike most jobs though, they’re working flat out almost all the time, often running on empty but still finding the energy from somewhere to care for people.
To all the medical staff I met that day – and to everyone working in healthcare who shows up day after day to look after us – thank you.
You prove that real empathy isn’t just about feeling for others, it's also about showing up to help them even when you’re feeling exhausted and stretched thin.
That's not lacking empathy, that's showing it in one of the toughest ways possible. Perhaps you should be the ones teaching empathy to the rest of us – there’s plenty we could learn from your example.
