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Scientists
around the world are hard at work finding innovative and high-tech cancer
therapies, but there’s more to treatment than the latest-and-greatest
medication or expensive equipment. In fact, evidence shows that
kindness in medical care can have a profound effect on patients’ outcomes, leading to faster
wound healing and reduced pain.
In one study,
researchers specifically looked at six forms of kindness — deep listening,
empathy, generous acts, timely care, gentle honesty, and support for family
caregivers — and shared how practitioners can incorporate
them into their care.
“A patient is a person first. Caring for human needs as well as medical needs
through kind acts is good medicine,” first author Leonard L. Berry wrote in
an article reflecting on the study.
And the acts of kindness don’t have to be big to be impactful. One parent
whose child was treated for cancer at an Australian hospital recalled: “My
son had general anesthesia for radiation therapy. ... When he woke up, he got
upset about lacking a shirt. Now the team puts his shirt back on before he
wakes … To me, these small acts were the ultimate kindness, reducing his anxiety
and distress and, therefore, my own.”
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