A beautifully made video which shows the essence, which all healthcare practitioners should have. As what Henry David Thoreau said, should the healthcare practitioners look through the eyes of their patients, would they have ‘treated’ their patients very differently? I believe so.

I remembered the time when my father was very sick, the ones who were really connected to us were not the ones who merely treated my father but the ones who went through the extra miles to find out what else we needed.

In fact, we could use a lot of empathy in our everyday lives and not only in healthcare or service lines. Bear in mind that the waiter/waitress who is serving us in the restaurant, or the cashier who is processing our payments, the strangers who cross our paths – each has a story to tell. It was indeed very wise of Socrates when he said, “Be nicer than necessary to everyone you meet. Everyone is fighting some kind of battle.”

From this moment, whenever we are readied to judge the person in front of us, all the more we must get to know the person better. Often time when we dislike something in another, we can be sure that that ‘something’ can be found in us too. You may scream ‘Not True’ all you want. And yet when we calm down and ask ourselves honestly, we do have to admit that that ‘something’, which we dislike in the other person, is also in us.

If we could stand in the person’s shoes, hear what he or she hears, see what he or she sees, and feel what he or she feels, would we have treated the person differently?