For a new medical resident, or even an experienced doctor, the emotional toll of the job can be overwhelming. Dominic Vachon ’80, ’85 M.Div., a practicing psychologist, experienced it firsthand—he found himself burnt out, stretched thin, and emotionally detached from his patients, so eight years ago he came to Notre Dame determined to understand the scientific implications of compassion from a biological, neuroscientific, and psychological perspective. Now, Vachon is Notre Dame’s John G. Sheedy, M.D., Director of the Ruth M. Hillebrand Center for Compassionate Care in Medicine and is training the next generation of doctors to root their practice in compassion.
“Compassion is essential for patient care and it's essential for the well-being of the clinician. The two go hand in hand,” Vachon explains. He underscores that compassion isn’t sentimentality, but is instead an applied use of skills, knowledge, and communication to foster successful doctor-patient relationships.
Sam Grewe ’21 has seen the impact of compassion from the other side of medicine. When he was 13 years old, Grewe developed osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer, and was eventually required to amputate one of his legs. As a teenager undergoing treatments, surgeries, and therapies, he said his doctors, especially the ones who took the time to explain, who provided comfort, and who gave him a sense of agency, motivated him to work hard and do well. Now, he’s a Paralympic high jumper and is planning to attend medical school next fall.More: https://go.nd.edu/CompassionInMedicine
More from What Would You Fight For?
- 2:01Fighting for Better Cancer DetectionIn the United States alone, there are nearly 240,000 breast cancer diagnoses each year, and one in eight women will develop breast cancer at some point in her lifetime. To date, mammograms are the best diagnostic technology for breast cancer. A mammogram’s ability to detect tumors at early stages has made breast cancer one of the most treatable forms of cancer, but there are still almost 50,000 missed diagnoses every year.For many women, that missed diagnosis comes from having dense breast tissue which prohibits clear results from a basic mammogram. Notre Dame professor Ryan Roeder is working to reduce the number of missed diagnoses in dense breast tissue by using gold nanoparticles. The nanoparticles can be injected into the breast and attach to indicators of cancer, like microcalcifications. Because gold is a heavy metal, in an X-ray or mammogram it will be seen clearly, even in dense tissue.Roeder’s project is far from the finish line, but optimism in this fight against breast cancer is high. With luck, partnerships and persistence, the best way to think pink may involve thinking gold.
- 2:07Fighting to Protect the InnocentThrough collaboration with the National Immigrant Justice Center, Notre Dame law students are able to participate in an NIJC externship program allowing them to work on asylum cases of immigrants entering the United States.Law School alumnae Stephanie Torres and Christina Shakour took on the case of Maria and Ariel, immigrants from El Salvador seeking a safer life after receiving threats of violence from gangs. The team worked up to 30 hours a week on top of their course work to help the family in need. In total, they filed more than 300 pages of documentation to prove that the family qualified for asylum. After hours of preparation, Shakour and Torres presented the case before Immigration Court and obtained asylum for Maria and Ariel in the United States.*Because the well-being of Maria's daughters is still in jeopardy in El Salvador, and because gang retaliation could still occur in the U.S., actors were used in this What Would You Fight For video.*
