I think I understand the core of your sentiment on this, but let's not gloss over the manner in which "Big Pharma" markets its products to doctors/patients or the role it plays in encouraging physicians to overprescribe. There are good people in pharmaceutical sales, but like much of our healthcare system, there are lots of people who put dollar before duty, too.
Anthony Bourdain RIP
- Thread starter sglowrider
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I think I understand the core of your sentiment on this, but let's not gloss over the manner in which "Big Pharma" markets its products to doctors/patients or the role it plays in encouraging physicians to overprescribe. There are good people in pharmaceutical sales, but like much of our healthcare system, there are lots of people who put dollar before duty, too.
ECT saved the life of a loved one. There are some short term memory issues but haven't seen anything that gets people out of severe depression with risk of suicide as quickly. Cognitive therapies, medications, exercise, eating right....do those first...but don't give up if those don't work. It is, by now, a well studied treatment.
A lot of people in this thread have little understanding of depression. It is something that’s hard to understand if you haven’t experienced it. Many people go through situational depression, after a loved one dies, after a pregnancy, a marriage breaks up, etc. Actual chemical imbalance is much harder to treat and as we’ve seen this week, it pays no mind to how successful you are to the outside world . It’s a terrible disease, like cancer or heart disease. The lack of empathy from some ( and couldn’t you just guess who it would be) is concerning, yet not surprising in the least. It’s a characteristically if a whole subset of people now...if it doesn’t effect me, then why should I care?
Aren’t you conflating empathy with sympathy? If you truly empathize with a troubled person it usually must result from you having a similar experience. You tend to lose objectivity and personalize the issue. I think you mean sympathy, which is fine. Caregivers or other help must remain objective. Empathy and sympathy are not always mutually exclusive, but they can be.
Like Zeke, empathy is the word I would use. Sympathy means a feeling of pity or sorrow for someone else's misfortune. Empathy means understanding how someone else feels. Sympathy as a feeling is different than empathy which is an understanding. Good caregivers are empathetic rather than sympathetic...nobody wants to be pitied...everybody wants to be understood. But people tend to use the words interchangeably.
I don't think so. I can empathize with people without sharing the experience. The ability to understand and share the feelings of others... Some people may need to have the exact same experience in order to truly empathize, but others are able to walk a mile in their shoes. It's one of the reasons that I think people that read, travel, even watch documentaries or tv ( the Wire) do a better job of empathizing than those that never get out of their comfort zone and only surround themselves with like minded people.
Thanks for your thoughts, att. It caused severe problems for a loved one of mine. I agree that nothing works as quickly as ECT on major problems, but there can also be major long-term effects.
I am so sorry to hear that. Would be interested in hearing about your experiences. In the case of my loved one there was some memory loss...mostly short term as far as we can tell. The upside was quite significant. I posted the info and video on ECT because we weren't even really aware of the option until things were really bad.
I first became aware of the importance of the difference between empathy and sympathy when I used a professional jury consultant in a case. He cautioned against picking jurors that were too demographically similar to the client. For example, if the client is a 30 something female, your ideal juror would probably be an older person who would view the client as a daughter. You don't want to pick another 30 something female juror because that person would empathize in a negative way--she would tend to be too judgmental. And zeke, the consultant said statistics show that this judgmental empathy is the most severe in the 25-40 female demographic. Thought you would want to know that.
In my own practice, I always thought that I could be a better advocate for my client by being a little distant. I've mentioned before that I was hit by a drunk driver and had many non-life threatening injuries. I was in a position to put myself in the position of my client. I guarded against that. It's hard enough maintaining objectivity in a case without putting your self in the client's shoes. Clients usually need to know that they come across as convincing and sympathetic to an objective and outside observer. They don't always get that with an excessively empathetic person.
There are a lot of . . . .ahem . . . . .nuances to this point. I think it is important to not conflate the two ideas.
Very interesting. The phenomena of "judgemental empathy" sounds quite believable. Except I wouldn't call it empathy in that case...I would call it a lack of empathy. That it would be pronounced in the 25-40 female demographic is worth a link if you can provide it. Here is one that I found on the broader topic with the title: "It's Harder to Empathize with People if you've been in their Shoes."I first became aware of the importance of the difference between empathy and sympathy when I used a professional jury consultant in a case. He cautioned against picking jurors that were too demographically similar to the client. For example, if the client is a 30 something female, your ideal juror would probably be an older person who would view the client as a daughter. You don't want to pick another 30 something female juror because that person would empathize in a negative way--she would tend to be too judgmental. And zeke, the consultant said statistics show that this judgmental empathy is the most severe in the 25-40 female demographic. Thought you would want to know that.
In my own practice, I always thought that I could be a better advocate for my client by being a little distant. I've mentioned before that I was hit by a drunk driver and had many non-life threatening injuries. I was in a position to put myself in the position of my client. I guarded against that. It's hard enough maintaining objectivity in a case without putting your self in the client's shoes. Clients usually need to know that they come across as convincing and sympathetic to an objective and outside observer. They don't always get that with an excessively empathetic person.
There are a lot of . . . .ahem . . . . .nuances to this point. I think it is important to not conflate the two ideas.
Taken together, these results suggest that people who have endured a difficult experience are particularly likely to penalize those who struggle to cope with a similar ordeal.
But why does this occur? We suggest that this phenomenon is rooted in two psychological truths.
First, people generally have difficulty accurately recalling just how difficult a past aversive experience was. Though we may remember that a past experience was painful, stressful, or emotionally trying, we tend to underestimate just how painful that experience felt in the moment. This phenomenon is called an “empathy gap.”
Second, people who have previously overcome an aversive experience know that they were able to successfully overcome it, which makes them feel especially confident about their understanding of just how difficult the situation is. The combined experience of “I can’t recall how difficult it was” and “I know that I got through it myself” creates the perception that the event can be readily conquered, reducing empathy toward others struggling with the event.
This finding seems to run counter to our intuitions. When we asked participants to predict who would show the most compassion for the bullied teenager, for instance — either a teacher who’d endured bullying himself, or one who never had – an overwhelming 99 out of the 112 people chose the teacher who had been bullied. This means that many people may be instinctively seeking compassion from the very people who are least likely to provide it.
But why does this occur? We suggest that this phenomenon is rooted in two psychological truths.
First, people generally have difficulty accurately recalling just how difficult a past aversive experience was. Though we may remember that a past experience was painful, stressful, or emotionally trying, we tend to underestimate just how painful that experience felt in the moment. This phenomenon is called an “empathy gap.”
Second, people who have previously overcome an aversive experience know that they were able to successfully overcome it, which makes them feel especially confident about their understanding of just how difficult the situation is. The combined experience of “I can’t recall how difficult it was” and “I know that I got through it myself” creates the perception that the event can be readily conquered, reducing empathy toward others struggling with the event.
This finding seems to run counter to our intuitions. When we asked participants to predict who would show the most compassion for the bullied teenager, for instance — either a teacher who’d endured bullying himself, or one who never had – an overwhelming 99 out of the 112 people chose the teacher who had been bullied. This means that many people may be instinctively seeking compassion from the very people who are least likely to provide it.
I think everything you say here is correct, but still doesn’t discount my point. Time and place for both empathy and sympathy.
I first became aware of the importance of the difference between empathy and sympathy when I used a professional jury consultant in a case. He cautioned against picking jurors that were too demographically similar to the client. For example, if the client is a 30 something female, your ideal juror would probably be an older person who would view the client as a daughter. You don't want to pick another 30 something female juror because that person would empathize in a negative way--she would tend to be too judgmental. And zeke, the consultant said statistics show that this judgmental empathy is the most severe in the 25-40 female demographic. Thought you would want to know that.
In my own practice, I always thought that I could be a better advocate for my client by being a little distant. I've mentioned before that I was hit by a drunk driver and had many non-life threatening injuries. I was in a position to put myself in the position of my client. I guarded against that. It's hard enough maintaining objectivity in a case without putting your self in the client's shoes. Clients usually need to know that they come across as convincing and sympathetic to an objective and outside observer. They don't always get that with an excessively empathetic person.
There are a lot of . . . .ahem . . . . .nuances to this point. I think it is important to not conflate the two ideas.
Med Device sales and service tends to be where I've seen more of the "good people". Pharma sales has become filled with attractive people that don't actually know what they are selling or how to properly sell it. I knew plenty of attractive sorority girls that ended up in Pharma and their looks certainly had something to do with the "fit" of that position (not suggesting some of them aren't capable, just that predominantly male doctors are more inclined to purchase and listen for the wrong reasons).
That being said, I think you both have valid points. Big Pharma isn't and never will be innocent. But, to Ranger's point, if physicians were doing their job and focused on optimizing quality of care, you wouldn't have over-prescription of certain drugs (e.g. opiates) or prescription of the wrong ones. There are some really good physicians out there that don't care about anything but providing the best quality of care. Unsurprisingly, they end up making plenty of money financially as a byproduct of great care and service to their patients.
There's plenty in there that I can agree with. I wouldn't restrict it to "attractive sorority girls" though. There are plenty of handsome dudes who don't know what they are selling or how to properly sell it in sales, too. And there are plenty of out-of-control cowboys in med device sales as well. My complaint mostly was with the idea that doctors are solely to blame. Doctors need to keep their eye on the ball, but pharma sales does its fair share of "pushing" of product in unsavory ways.
I agree. Obviously compensation and structure varies, but from what I've heard, Pharma and Med Device reps have tremendous earning opportunity, primarily through commissions. While I think we all can agree that commission structures tend to have value in the marketplace, perhaps appropriate clawbacks need to be put in place for pharma/med device sales reps that are inappropriately pushing product and linked to litigation? In other words, if a pharma rep is held accountable monetarily (or perhaps criminally), it would hopefully reduce the bad actors existence and/or change the behavior of salespeople in the space.
