The power of compassion: Professional registered nurses are
compassionate people
When discussing compassion for
others, it is apparent that the gift and power of compassion is evident in
nursing, as professional registered nurses are compassionate people.
Professional registered nurses demonstrate genuine compassion for their
patients. Many registered nurses recognize the power of compassion with regard
to the healing, health and wholeness of others. They perceive compassion as
being a contributing factor to the happiness of people, everywhere.
If you asked others the same
question, ‘are registered nurses compassionate people?’ some people might
respond with a ‘yes’, while others disagree, as not everyone
perceives registered nurses as being compassionate.
Compassion for others is
becoming increasingly important, in our era. There are not enough registered
nurses to satisfy the rapidly expanding, nursing care demands of people, all
around the world. That does not suggest that registered nurses do not have
compassion for others; it does state that there is a growing shortage of
registered nurses. More registered nurses need to be trained now, as well as in
the future in order to meet the increased global demands for compassionate
health care.
What does it mean for
professional registered nurses to have compassion with regard to the nursing
care of their patients?
First, registered nurses are people and compassion can
mean different things to different people. Not all people are compassionate by
nature and they show varying degrees of compassion at different times, with
different people and in different situations. That is normal. While many people
demonstrate high levels of compassion, others show lower levels of compassion
or appear to have non-compassion for others. Registered nurses have high levels
of compassion for others, or they would not have become registered nurses.
Compare two levels of
compassion, namely divine compassion and human compassion.
Divine compassion
Divine compassion is the kind
of compassion depicted by the life of Christ, as He entered into the human
situation to bring about the act of redemption for mankind. Only He can portray
divine compassion, which would be perfect compassion.
Human compassion
Human compassion is the kind of
compassion that people exhibit for one another. At best, it is imperfect
compassion, because it is human and not divine. Registered nurses often show a
high degree of divine Christ-like, compassion for others, while the majority of
human beings show compassion limited to the realm of human compassion.
Defining the words compassion
and compassionate in conjunction, with their practical applications in the
nursing profession, will help to determine what true compassion really means.
Compassion
The word compassion is derived
from the fourteenth century, Latin word 'compati', which means to sympathize with
another person. It includes having sympathetic consciousness of another's
distress and the desire to alleviate it. (1)
Compassionate
The word compassionate portrays
a person who has or shows compassion for and to others. A compassionate person
exhibits, demonstrates or grants compassion to another person because of
unusual distressing circumstances, affecting an individual. The word
compassionate is used in conjunction with the expression to pity. (2)
How does one appropriately
portray what compassion signifies, in terms of the professional nursing care of
patients? Sympathy and empathy are terms that are used nursing.
Sympathy
Sympathy is defined as an
affinity, association or relationship between persons or things, wherein
whatever affects one, similarly affects the other. (3)
A good example of sympathy is
the awareness of birth pangs experienced by a husband, when his wife is in
labor. He experiences sympathy pains. A person demonstrating sympathy takes on
the same plight, as another human being and experiences or feels, what the
other person experiences or feels.
Empathy
Empathy is defined as the
imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object, so that the object
appears to be infused with it. Empathy is the action of understanding, being
aware of, being sensitive to and vicariously expressing the feelings, thoughts
and experience of another, of either the past or present, without having the
feelings, thoughts and experience fully communicated in an objective, explicit
manner or the capacity for this. (4)
What this means is that in
empathy, there is an appropriate distance established in a relationship between
two people. It allows a person to take an objective approach to something, as
opposed to a subjective approach. For example, a professional registered nurse
would not feel the birth pangs of a woman in labor, though he or she would be
acutely aware of them, with respect to the patient. He or she would attempt to
relieve the patient's distress through appropriate nursing care measures and
empathize with the patient or demonstrate empathetic compassion.
Compassion in its practical
application for professional registered nurses, must be based on empathy,
rather than sympathy. To work effectively as a professional registered nurse,
invariably requires a degree of distancing oneself from a patient. That is
vital to survival as a registered nurse.
Consider another example,
namely that of a patient with a disease entity of some kind. A registered nurse
cannot be infected by the same disease as a patient and expect to function in
the capacity of a registered nurse, as the professional caregiver, at the same time.
The registered nurse must take appropriate precautions to ensure that he or she
does not become ill. If this means wearing a gown, gloves and a mask, that is
what needs to be done, even if the patient objects. This is often perceived by
patients as nurses distancing themselves from them.
Sympathy would put the
registered nurse in the position of having the same disease entity or the same
symptoms of the disease that the patient manifests. He or she would not be able
to take care of the patient effectively. Empathy would distance the registered
nurse, in such a way that he or she would be able to take care of the patient.
He or she would not have the disease or the disease symptoms.
Registered nurses are
compassionate people, whether they are perceived to be compassionate or not.
The compassion they manifest to others, may not be understood by others as being
compassion. Registered nurses do have to distance themselves from their
patients, in order to take care of them properly, in an objective, rather than
a subjective manner. Many people have high, but unrealistic expectations of
registered nurses and think that those who distance themselves from patients
demonstrate non-compassion, not compassion.
Becoming a participant in the
patient's entire scenario, by engaging in sympathy, is not going to help a
patient. Assuming a kind and gentle manner, a loving and caring attitude, along
with an empathetic stand, empowers registered nurses to function in a
professional capacity, with regard to nursing care. True compassion places the
registered nurse in a position where the patient can receive compassionate,
empathetic nursing care.
There is power in having
compassion for others, as long as that compassion remains empathetic. The
moment a registered nurse becomes too involved with a patient and resorts to
sympathy or pity for the patient, the capacity to be a caregiver diminishes.
Empathy may seem like a tough love kind of compassion, but it is true
compassion and it does demonstrate power in terms of the healing, health,
happiness and wholeness of others.
Registered nurses are
compassionate people who show empathy, rather than sympathy and are able to
demonstrate the true power of Christ-like compassion, with regard to
administering professional nursing care to patients.
1. Webster's Ninth New
Collegiate Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Inc., Springfield , Mass.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
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