Attending

by Ronald Epstein

  13 Other—secular—health systems are increasingly appointing “chief empathy officers,” directors of “the patient experience,” and others in similar roles to focus on enhancing trust, communication, and healing relationships.

  14 See K. B. Schwartz, “A Patient’s Story,” Boston Globe Magazine, 1995, 16; and Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare, http://www.theschwartzcenter.org, for further information about the foundation.

  15 B. A. Lown and C. F. Manning, “The Schwartz Center Rounds: Evaluation of an Interdisciplinary Approach to Enhancing Patient-Centered Communication, Teamwork, and Provider Support,” Academic Medicine 85(6) (2010): 1073–81.

  16 Monash University, the largest medical school in Australia, and the University of Rochester, where I work, have been the pioneers. At Rochester, we offer five required mindful practice workshops in the third year of medical school. We also offer four- and five-day workshops for practicing physicians and educators who wish to develop their skills further. For information about Rochester’s mindful practice programs, see www.mindfulpractice.urmc.edu. Here are a few sample websites for programs that promote well-being in clinicians: http://www.medicine.virginia.edu/administration/faculty/faculty-dev/copy_of_home-page; http://www.ohsu.edu/xd/education/schools/school-of-medicine/gme-cme/gme/resident-fellow-wellness-program/index.cfm; http://www.tfme.org/regional-conferences/physician-well-being-conference; and http://www.mayo.edu/research/centers-programs/physician-well-being-program/overview. For general information about mindfulness and medical education, see P. L. Dobkin and T. A. Hutchinson, “Teaching Mindfulness in Medical School: Where Are We Now and Where Are We Going,” Medical Education 47(8) (2013): 768–79.

  APPENDIX: ATTENTION PRACTICE

  1 R. M. Epstein, “Mindful Practice,” JAMA 282(9) (1999): 833–39.

  2 One accessible guide to different meditation practices for psychotherapists is S. M. Pollak, T. Pedulla, and R. D. Siegel, Sitting Together: Essential Skills for Mindfulness-Based Psychotherapy (New York: Guilford Press, 2014). For audio files from our programs, please go to https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/family-medicine/mindful-practice/curricula-materials/audios.aspx. On the Web, guided meditations can be found at http://www.mindfulness-solution.com/DownloadMeditations.html and https://www.tarabrach.com/guided-meditations. For shorter meditations, try http://marc.ucla.edu/body.cfm?id=22. A popular app for beginning meditators is “Headspace”—compelling and entertaining.

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