What People Have Been Saying About Medicine and Compassion

Medicine and Compassion is a wonderful guide for caregivers to develop compassion and skill in helping others from their deepest heart. A verypractical, easy to read, and much needed book.

- Judith Orloff, M.D., author of Positive Energy

I was dumbfounded by how much Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche comprehends the emotional challenges facing doctors in relationship to their patients. He nails it time and time again, as if he knew what is was to practice medicine in the Western context. And I love how he makes that the context for the teachings on emptiness and compassion. Magnificent. I shall continue to reread it just for the pleasure of the teachings and the clarity of his mind and the purity of his heart. This is a very worthy project. The book will be a very important contribution to medicine and to dharma.

— Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Full Catastrophe Living,
and Wherever You Go, There You Are. He reviewed an earlier draft of the manuscript.

I think the main way in which the course helped me was in my last year as chief of staff.  My first year was a bit of a struggle because I kept trying to do something.  My last year I was more content to simply be there and try to listen, take a more meditative position and let things work themselves out.  Now that I'm on the hospital board I continue to try to shut up and listen more than I speak out, and I seem to have replaced the sarcasm in my style with plain old humor. I've also noticed that I have less problems with "rubbing patients the wrong way."  Although I still manage to occasionally tick somebody off,  I tend to see it coming a bit sooner and manage to stifle my abrasive self and start over with more of an honest "how can I help you" approach.  I've also found myself a bit more comfortable simply being honest with patients or family members of patients with whom I come into conflict, which also seems to help. Actually, I think the training might have helped avoid a lawsuit in a case where a post-operative patient suffered an arrest and subsequent brain damage.  I managed to put aside my own anxiety and worries sufficiently to interact as positively as possible with the family members, and then simply continued to be the patient's advocate through a long hospitalization even though my role as surgeon was long gone.  The family ultimately sued the hospital and several other parties, but not me—even though I was the original attending physician.  

— Rick Shallman, M.D. , who attended the Medicine
and Wisdom course in 2002.