One of the greatest things a healthcare professional can do is work to develop their empathy and understanding of what it feels like to be the patient in front of them (particularly a surgeon).
One of the best ways to do this is to become a patient and then understand how it feels, how it smells, the concern, the anxiety, the uncertainty, and the worry.
We're not very good at that most of the time in our profession; we're not very good at being the patient.
Empathy is something that we learn, something that can be developed and reflecting on what it's like for us to be on the other side gives us a better opportunity to be a more empathic clinician when the roles change again.
Blog Post Number - 4152