Mastering Empathy – The Key to Exceptional Patient Care in PA School

Whether you volunteer at a local charity clinic, please work with your family physician, or pursue other avenues for clinical exposure, it’s essential to begin accumulating patient care experience as early as possible. This way, when applying to PA school, you have the clinical expertise required to succeed in the program.

Active Listening

To be an exceptional physician assistant, one needs more than just medical knowledge and diagnostic skills. Empathy, the cornerstone of excellent patient care experience for PA school, is developed through active listening. It’s about putting oneself in the patient’s shoes, understanding their worries, feeling their pain, and sensing their hope.

By actively listening, empathy is fostered, which builds trust between patients and healthcare providers, transcending diagnoses and prescriptions. When healthcare providers connect with patients on a human level, they can provide care that addresses physical ailments and emotional burdens. Mastering empathy is the key to delivering outstanding patient care and making a lasting impact far beyond the exam room.

Active Reflection

Reflection is a dynamic and active process that can occur after an experience, during an experience, or for a future experience. It can change your ideas and understanding of a situation and lead to learning.

For example, a patient might be experiencing deep sadness and a heavy sense of loss. During the interaction, an empath might remember when they felt the same and vicariously experience that person’s emotions to understand their needs better.

Reflective thinking helps us develop empathy for patients as we can more closely relate to their experiences. However, it is essential to note that genuine empathy requires deeper reflection than just simply imagining or feeling what someone else is experiencing.

Openness to Engage Emotionally

When you’re empathetic, you allow yourself to imagine or vicariously experience what others are feeling. It’s a way to connect with them and build trust.

As a PA student, you’ll need to feel comfortable asking patients personal questions and delivering bad news. Similarly, your ability to empathize with your coworkers will help you navigate challenging conversations around workplace issues and create strong relationships.

Considering this, it’s essential to consider your emotional openness when choosing extracurricular activities. For example, if you only begin accumulating patient care experience hours when you’re ready to submit your CASPA application, it could leave PA schools wondering whether you’re genuinely passionate about the profession or simply doing it to impress them.

Delving into the neuroscience behind empathy, this section explores mirror neurons and their role in establishing a deep connection with empathetic statements. Additionally, it discusses the importance of tailoring empathy statements to varying situations for a more genuine impact.

Curiosity

Curiosity is one of the most important traits to possess as a PA student. Practicing curiosity includes putting yourself in another person’s shoes, observing without judgment, and reflecting on biases. It is also a critical component of effective communication and problem-solving in healthcare.

Research shows that curiosity is heightened when information is viewed as relevant, even if it does not have immediate or clear-cut long-term utility. Topics such as death and sex were found to be inherently interesting, which researchers believe is due to their relevance to the human condition.

To be a successful physician assistant, you must always be curious and learn on the job. Physician assistants often work in various medical settings and must remain current on new developments in the field. This requires a willingness to immerse themselves in different fields of medicine and to take the time needed to understand their full range of clinical responsibilities.

Whether your HCE and PCE are in hospitals, private physician offices, community-based clinics, or therapy businesses, be sure to keep track of everything you do so that you can provide this list on your PA school application!