Breaking Israel News
Halevy constantly says that when he chooses new hospital department heads and other senior physicians and nurses, he selects them as much for their compassion for human beings as for their professional expertise. “Being sympathetic is to encourage and provide comfort. Compassionate empathy is to go under the patient’s skin and feel what he feels.”
When MESSER, Israel’s Medical Simulation Center near Tel Aviv was opened by Prof. Amitai Ziv, Halevy sent all his departments there to learn, while being filmed, how to apologize to patients for errors, how to console bereaved families and more. “Now this is done in all Israeli hospitals,” Halevy said.
He was very emotional when he recalled sending auxiliary workers to MESSER, which uses actors to serve as patients and relatives. “They do work that practical nurses used to do, washing patients, moving them from bed to hospital trolley. One of them was asked to do a simulation of dealing with the family of an elderly patient who died of cancer and prepare the “body” for the morgue. He patted the shocked “son” on his back and said: ‘We are here to help if you need us. We will be here so you can say goodbye to your father. My father too died of cancer, when he was 54. I know what you are going through!’ That is empathy!”
