Skin in the Game
By Mary Conger, Doctoral Candidate, University of Pennsylvania; Founder, The American Dialogue Project
Chair, IOA Communications Committee
Last week, I went to see my doctor. In the course of discussing my minor malady she briefly mentioned an experience she’d had as a patient herself. It was a casual, entirely appropriate remark. She didn’t “overshare” or project her experience onto me. Her anecdote took all of 10 seconds to relay, but it has stayed with me for days.
I like my doctor. She is knowledgeable, experienced, well-regarded. Her academic pedigree is top-notch and her online reviews uniformly superb. Her wry but warm bedside manner is exactly my speed. If you had asked me two weeks ago, “How’s your doctor?” I would have answered, “She’s perfect!”
But this week, I find her even perfect-er. In conveying that she knew what it felt like to be vulnerable and under another’s care, she created a deeper trust between us. That is the incredible power of evinced empathy—it closes gaps that you didn’t even know were there.