Compassion: A Dirty Word

Ha, Ruby is back.As much as I sometimes disagree with you, I always enjoy your postings and believe you are an excellent writer. Always good to have a backup career-JK

After reading this I had to look up the word. We use it frequently and I found the definition interesting. a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering. I was educated to avoid sympathy and replace with empathy. Yes, I do have a strong desire to alleviate suffering. Many times there seems to be a feeling of entitlement for removal of feelings rather than seeking help to alleviate misfortune. Feelings cannot be sucked out of another person at will by someone who is suffering. One cannot add water and find a strong desire in another to alleviate misfortune. It requires some level of cooperative communication. That is far different than to abuse and then try to guilt another into feelings of compassion.Too often we fail to identify abusive communications until they set us on a path of seeminly to be less comapssionate. Until we can verbally identify abuse and get backing to stop it we will be subject to the criticism of not being compassionate.

It is no wonder that we seem to no longer understand the concept of compassion in the USA when we also have bastardized the concepts of liberalism, greed, and ethics......but maybe that is the topic of a separate thread.

Hear, hear!!! I can't say how tired I am of the "bambi and butterflies and happy dolphin music" stereotype of "compassionate nursing". I disagree with the definition of compassion as sympathy ... I'd use the word empathy. Real compassion comes from a deep understanding of "there but for the grace of God go I". Striving for compassion while at the same time keeping proper boundaries is one of the greatest challenges of nursing. It's not accomplished overnight. Then, there's the sheer arrogance of anyone presuming to dictate how I'm allowed to feel.

Bambi , butterflies , and happy dolphin music?????!!!!! I just laughed 'til I cried! I agree....eeeeuuuuuuwwwwwhhhhh!

Awesome! Compassion: sympathetic appreciation for the suffering of another coupled with a desire to alleviate it. As in, I may desire to alleviate your thirst when you are NPO, but it is my duty to keep you safe. My understanding of your thirst and desire to alleviate it makes me compassionate; the fact that I don't indulge that desire and do the right thing makes me a competent professional nurse. In between, there is education, sympathy, and maybe a glycerine swab....

on nurses that eat their young and compassion; a friend came up with this reasoning: it is probably the nurses who are in nursing for the wrong reasons that may guilty of a percentage of the problems along with as "jealousy" and "stress." it is all interference to best outcomes. our responsibility is not to reason why but to be resourceful. the ethical commitment one must make guides us to work with compassion, to give a new nurse or an established nurse every benefit of his or her experience and assist his/her coworkers in order to help the hospital’s clients. however we all work with human beings, individuals that are evolving at diverse rates and possess unique talents. what does one do? when working alongside those who act in a manner inconsistent with one's view of compassion, one is triggered to grow. my suggestion; learn to handle the guilty with grace so to develop desirable qualities such as “patience, tolerance, and acceptance." in private, journal with dates. journaling is a tool that helps me carry on during complicated, challenging events. each one of us must understand that it is better to nurture self and embrace a lesson from whatever or whoever irritates or interferes. once centered, find a couple of qualities that makes the guilty valuable and worthy of your respect. build on that. i remember grace i have been given and pay it forward.

An interesting viewpoint. I agree that I do enjoy your posts though I do not always agree with what you say. This is one of those times. I recently was witness to a cold firing of a secretary on "Administrative Professionals" day of all things. She was probably expecting a luncheon or gift and instead was fired.No, I don't think there is much compassion in the world today no matter how you define it. These people who ask for compassion are hurting, for whatever reason, and are asking for support. It is difficult to always be there and be supportive for everyone. Especially when we feel they are taking advantage or are undeserving. I strive to hold my tongue and to give support no matter what I feel. It is not always easy. I am tired and stretched too thin and abused by those who feel they are superior to me, a lowly nurse. But I really try. I never know when my turn will come and I will want for compassion. "There, but for the grace of God, go I".

You are right on many levels. It takes an open mind, tolerance and a non-judgmental attitude to be compassionate. Nurses are not in the workplace or at home (since our profession is 24-7) to change people. We are there to gently lead by knowing. By that I certainly don't say that nurses know everything, but we can lead folks to more information or to help come to conclusions on their own. It is a different methodology than the medical model. It is holistic, mind, body, spirit. That being said, we have to meet people on their own terms at the place they are at that particular moment. Many times we have to remind people of that. We have to get patients, family and friends through the crises and once that occurs we can delve more deeply into the cause and effect of things that occur that cause people to need our assistance. That same methodology can be used to precept. Empathize with new nurses, because we were there once too. I think we tend to forget that. Old people get old because they feel there is nothing left to learn. I think a mind-set of life long learning keeps you young. New nurses have new things to show the older nurses. We have to keep an open mind and give younger nurses credit for helping us learn new things. Believe me they can. They can learn things from us too.

Well said, thak you!

to cdsga , cxg174 , bleverett , kindaquazie , and heron : You all made such good points and expressed yourselves so well I could feel the warmth and kindness coming through. My mother was an RN and I learned from observing her and seeing + hearing how people responded to her. As I got older and could look back I also could see the compassion with which she raised her children. That compassion included accepting each of us for our differences, helpful support without pushing toward what SHE might prefer us to do, offering a range of advice without neccessarily expecting us to take it,( and not being angry with us if we didn't.) Sometime all we can do is put the information out there, help organize it in a way that the one we are working with can understand it, ( where resourcefulness and creativity come in handy), because everyone learns differently. We encourage/share/laugh/cry ,( and find a place/way to vent our frustrations , as frustrations DO come.) When I was doing home-health visits I had to learn to let go of expectations. I knew when I walked out their door, in the end people are going to do what they're going to do . I can hope for results and responses , but I can not force them to occur. None of us ALWAYS use the grace and free-will God grants us ,to our best benefit. It's HARD to understand why people do or don't do the things we try to teach and show them. I have the same problem with MYSELF, you know? But not everyone is in the same place of understanding ; that's when I use the template given/practiced by my mother: I zip my lip. I did the best I could to the best of my ability, and that's all I CAN do. Got to trust the Universe; don't expect I'll understand the whys and where-fores, but maybe I don't need to. Life's a mystery; people are a mystery. I don't have the keys to unlock all the mysteries. Thank God I'm not in charge of everything all the time! But meanwhile compassion is given and practiced , accepted and let go of to whatever degree is possible at any given point of time. Take a deep breath and let it out.Think of it as the scope of practice of human beings.

Excellent view