The second your shift as a hospital aide begins, you’re thrust into a whirlwind of beeping monitors, ringing call lights and hushed cries of patients in pain. The floor is alive with chaos as you’re pulled between comforting distressed families and answering the urgent demands of the ward. Amid the onslaught of tasks like taking vitals, dropping off ice waters and changing the TV channel, it’s easy to forget to talk to your patients, get to know them and be there for them during their difficult times.
In just one moment, you find yourself holding the hand of a frail patient who just received a devastating diagnosis, realizing that your presence — not the National Geographic documentary you turned on or the special fruit-juice mocktail you made them — makes the most positive impacts on their patient experience. It’s in these human moments where the weight of empathy becomes unmistakable.
Although the theoretical tenets of empathy can be memorized from textbooks, true empathy cannot be fostered in classrooms or by textbook discussion. As such, every pre-health student should serve as assistive personnel — whether as a nurse aide or patient care technician — before stepping into post-grad education. This direct-care experience is key to developing compassionate, culturally competent health care providers.
Although students often reach for roles like scribes or medical assistants, these jobs focus more on administrative duties and assessment rather than direct patient care. While valuable, these positions do not always provide the direct, hands-on patient interaction essential for understanding the day-to-day challenges of patient care.
Roles like nurse aides or patient care technicians, on the other hand, allow students to participate in the less glamorous but more critical aspects of caregiving — performing perineal care, wiping away bodily fluids or holding a basin for a patient as they retch. These tasks may seem mundane or even unpleasant, but they are where empathy is derived.
There’s an intimacy in these moments, a shared vulnerability between caregiver and patient where words often fail, but actions speak volumes. Empathy isn’t just about offering a kind word — it’s about understanding when a patient’s weary smile hides their discomfort, or when a brief squeeze of their hand speaks louder than any verbal reassurance you could give. It’s the difference between a patient feeling like another face in a crowded ward and truly feeling seen and heard.
Working as assistive personnel also gives pre-health students the opportunity to develop important clinical skills and insight into the health care system’s inner workings. Students will encounter various members of the health care team — nurses, doctors and even support staff — allowing them to respect and value the contributions of everyone involved in patient care.
However, some students may still feel that empathy and proper bedside manner can be taught effectively through classroom instruction. These classroom simulations, where students practice “communicating” with actors, cannot induce the emotions one experiences while holding a basin for a patient as they vomit or comforting someone after receiving a devastating diagnosis. The knowledge that the “patient” in a classroom setting is an actor or classmate diminishes the urgency and depth of the experience. Only through real patient care can students learn how to navigate the messy, emotional and human side of health care.
Many pre-health programs offer courses on cultural competence, unconscious bias and communication skills, aiming to instill these values through lectures, workshops and simulations. However, it is difficult to measure whether these lessons are as impactful in practice as experience in direct patient care. While classroom instruction and simulations offer valuable tools in teaching communication skills, hands-on experience with real patients significantly enhances emotional intelligence and cultural competence. Health care workers who engage in direct patient care demonstrate higher levels of empathy and create a better experience for patients than those who rely solely on academic learning.
And patients who receive empathetic care experience significantly better outcomes, which include, but are not limited to, decreased anxieties, increased clinical outcomes and recovery times, and improved patient empowerment. Whether it’s a 15-minute consultation or a one-minute patient consent signature, every interaction counts and can improve patient experiences.
Even students interested in specialties with less-direct patient interaction — like radiology or research — will eventually engage in some form of direct patient care, whether during their residencies or collaborative research efforts. While working as assistive personnel may feel unnecessary or irrelevant, understanding how to communicate with patients and respect the work of health care teams will reap benefits in the long run. Empathy is not just a skill for hands-on professions like nursing; it’s an essential trait for any health care provider, regardless of specialty or role.
Understandably, the demand to add yet another responsibility to an already overburdened pre-health student’s plate could be overwhelming. Medical students are no strangers to the multitude of responsibilities that come with the territory of pursuing advanced health care degrees. Between a rigorous academic load filled with notoriously difficult courses like organic chemistry and genetics, as well as a multitude of extracurricular commitments — including volunteering, shadowing and leadership roles — the journey to graduate education is anything but easy.
In light of this, a middle ground might be achieved through mandatory introductory classes for all students, regardless of major. Seminars that emphasize cultural competence, empathy and communication skills can be implemented across all disciplines, giving every student a foundation in these vital traits. These seminars could also provide opportunities for care for those who intend to practice medicine. However, for pre-health students in particular, these classes should complement — rather than replace — real-world patient care experiences.
Ultimately, working as assistive personnel offers an indispensable opportunity for pre-health students to develop empathy and clinical skills that simply cannot be taught in a classroom. It shapes future health care providers, who are not only technically proficient but emotionally attuned to the diverse needs of their patients.
As medicine advances and patient populations grow more diverse, empathy and cultural understanding have become essential, not optional, in health care. Integrating hands-on experience into pre-health education is crucial to shaping the next generation of compassionate, empathetic and well-rounded medical professionals.
Leah Huang is an Opinion Columnist writing about the challenges of being a pre-health student in her column “Vital Signs.” She can be reached at leahuang@umich.edu.
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