Clinical empathy as emotional labor in medical work

Abstract

The ongoing social transformation of the American healthcare system brings both structural and interpersonal changes to the delivery of healthcare. Some of these changes have been motivated by patients, who increasingly desire emotionally warm interactions with physicians. This is a departure from the detached concern that characterized physician-patient interactions in the mid-twentieth century. Concurrently, medical training continually adapts to trends in medical practice so that future physicians are prepared to enter practice. In this paper, we examine the rise of clinical skills training courses and assessments in medical school, highlighting the changing role of emotion in training about communication in the doctor - patient relationship. Drawing on an interpretive analysis of interviews with and ethnographic observations of medical students and residents from two United States medical schools, we elaborate the concept of clinical empathy to describe the character of emotional engagement in the contemporary clinical encounter. In the analysis we show how standards of emotional conduct are taught in medical school, how clinical empathy is operationalized in the patient encounter, and how clinical empathy may be used instrumentally to smooth the physician's work. Finally, we position the consistent performance of clinical empathy as a form of emotional labor, expanding the reach of studies of emotional labor in professions.

Keywords: Communication skills; Doctor-patient relationship; Emotional labor; Empathy; Medical education; Medical work; United States.