Acts of kindness can shape a profession

As a struggling medical student, I was shown an act of kindness that continues to shape me even now as a clinician. In the midst of the chaos and disruption ensuing from the COVID‐19 pandemic, I am reminded that kindness can help to ground us as clinicians and reconnect with what makes us human.

Fourteen years ago, I was a 17‐year‐old medical student encountering significant financial hardship. One particular week sticks in my memory where, with a sense of foreboding, I realised I had $20 to my name. Ten dollars was put towards a weekly bus ticket so that I could continue to attend my classes, whereas the remaining $10 was allocated for food. There was not a dollar left over.

This particular week, the chill of late Melbourne autumn was setting in. Long hours, university assignments, stress and cold weather contributed to a miserable bout of viral gastroenteritis. With a profuse barrage of misery departing various bodily orifices, I came to realise that I was in need of medical assistance. Pandemic‐level infection control did not yet exist, and neither did my bank account balance for a taxi, so I transported myself to my bulkbilling university health service via the local bus service. The 15‐minute bus ride was precarious; a trusty ice‐cream‐come‐vomit container in hand, and hypervigilance for bathroom facilities along the journey.

At the health service, I saw a kindly general practitioner. After dosing me with antiemetics, a bag of fluids and a medical certificate for classes, she asked me how I was going. An independent‐come‐neurotic medical student, I promptly informed her that I was, in fact, just “fine”, only anxious about missing my classes. The GP could have left the consultation at that and moved on to the next student in her crowded waiting room. Instead, she turned her chair towards me, fixed me with a pale blue stare and asked how I was really going.

With this kindly, but direct, question, my competent facade crumbled. Between tears, I told her of my struggles of trying to “adult” as a 17‐year‐old, my difficulties in meeting the demands of medical school, and also trying to find paid employment despite a busy university schedule. The GP gave me a safe and supported space where she listened to me at length. After coming up with a plan including ongoing medical management, in addition to self‐care and my taking a few days off classes, she then expressed concern about how I was going to get myself home. I had no answer. I was reluctant to admit the bus was my only option as at this time I had no money for anything else.

Deeply insightful, she read the look upon my face. She pulled out her own handbag from under the desk, reached into her purse and handed me a crisp, shiny $20 note for a taxi ride home. I was deeply embarrassed and wanted to refuse her money. She had already provided so much: her time, medical expertise, empathy and a listening ear. Eventually, my pragmatic side prevailed and humbly I accepted the note. With a timely follow‐up appointment in place, I made my way home to bed in the back of a taxi.

Ultimately the taxi ride home cost me $10, leaving $10 to pay for a bus pass the following week. That particular week of public transport enabled me to attend a job interview for an after‐hours ward clerk role at a local hospital. I was successful in this interview and consequently had the financial means to help fund the rest of my university costs.

Fast forward 14years and my circumstances are vastly different to those of that struggling 17‐year‐old medical student. Humbly, I can reflect that the turning point for me was all due to that GP’s extraordinary act of kindness. That $20 note could have been a thousand, for the huge difference it made for me at that point in my life.

I don’t know whether that GP would remember her actions all those years ago. Although I hope that perhaps she might read this article, remember me and realise what an impact she made. While I am not constantly reaching for my wallet mid‐consult, I am challenged to embody that same spirit of compassion in all my patient interactions.

This one small act of kindness shaped my life, but I am reminded that many small acts of kindness can help to revive and mould our profession. The pandemic years have brought burnout and with it compassion fatigue. Sadly, kindness, with compassion, has been suggested to be on the decline, and not just in medical care.1 Indeed, it is hard to stay kind when we ourselves are stressed and overworked within a stretched health system.

Encouragingly, kindness is like a muscle where one can build and practise it.1 Kindness has its roots in empathy — wherein empathy is the attitude, and kindness is the action. When my compassion tank is feeling empty, I am reassured that kindness doesn’t necessarily carry a heavy onus on the giver. Some days, embodying kindness involves my simply greeting a patient with warmth or a thoughtful word. At other times, it might be responding in kindness to the rushed and harried patient who attends late for an appointment. It might be giving space, despite a frenetic waiting room, for a patient to digest and ask questions around bad news. In other ways, it might be holding a door for a patient, assisting someone frail in carrying their personal belongings, or probing when a long term patient doesn’t seem themself.

Yet our kindness shouldn’t just be limited to our patients. Kindness can be contagious and has the power to shift the culture of our workplaces, especially when it encompasses all whom we encounter professionally. Kindness with colleagues may be embodied by checking in after a difficult shift, being inclusive in our teams, recognising the work of others and, especially in the pandemic, responding in kindness to others who are stressed and terse with us.

The benefits of kindness extend beyond brightening patient interactions and enlivening a workplace. Patient health care also benefits from kindness. Patients who perceive their doctor as empathic have improved clinical outcomes including patient satisfaction and adherence to treatment, and produce fewer malpractice complaints.2

As clinicians, we also profit from being kind. A single act of kindness can light up the reward centres of the giver’s brain.3 Interestingly, kind physicians also experience less burnout.1 Acting kindly can also increase our self‐esteem, empathy, compassion and improves our mood.4

The pandemic has presented a marathon where the finish line is only discussed in hypotheticals. Yet it is possible our embodying kindness may be a key element in boosting our resilience as individuals, and collectively, our profession.

One doctor’s act of kindness has made me the clinician I am. I wonder, what difference can you make with one small act of kindness today?