A Fortunate Man: The Story of a Country Doctor
The process of empathy: insights from John Berger’s A Fortunate Man
The process of empathy: insights from John Berger’s A Fortunate Man
David Jeffrey
British Journal of General Practice 2016; 66 (650): 476-477. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp16X686869
Berger describes the work of Dr John Sassall, a rural GP in the Forest of Dean.
On empathy
On empathy
Medical students experience a decline in their empathy levels during training.
Warns of the dangers of going beyond empathy and becoming overwhelmed by the patients’ suffering.
“We in our society do not know how to acknowledge, to measure the contribution of an ordinary working doctor. To take measure of a person doing no more and no less than easing – and occasionally saving – the lives of a few thousand of our contemporaries. To fully take the measure of it, we have to come to some conclusion about the value of these lives to us now”.