What is Medicine and Compassion about?
Medicine and Compassion is the first book to both raise and answer the question of whether caregivers can train to expand their capacity for compassion. The first principle of the Code of Medical Ethics of the American Medical Association emphasizes the need for compassion along with competence:
A physician shall be dedicated to providing competent medical care, with compassion and respect for human dignity and rights.
We all know how to increase our competence in medicine through study and experience, but what if we want to be more compassionate? Most of us are already trying hard to be compassionate, so the real question is how can we increase our capacity for compassion? Is there any known training method?
Medicine and Compassion offers an answer to this question based on the insights of Tibetan Buddhism into the source and cultivation of compassion. These insights can be utilized without having to adopt Buddhism as a philosophy or religion. This book represents the first time that Tibetan Buddhist philosophy has been adapted to the specific needs of the medical caregiver, offering advice on the value of compassion, how patients feel when they are ill and frightened, and what the motivated caregiver can do to meet their needs.
The concept of training in compassion that is presented in this book is based on the observation that compassion is inherent within ourselves. Compassionate behavior is not something that needs to be added to an already overburdened "to do" list. Compassion does not just mean spending extra time and energy on someone else’s behalf. From a Buddhist perspective, compassion is a quality that can suffuse our usual activities, making them more effective. In order to appreciate our inherent compassion, we need to train in achieving a relaxed state of mind, free of the constant instability of attachments and emotions that obscure our natural state. When this relaxed, open state is achieved, compassion flows more freely and requires less energy.
