Pediatric emergency medicine trisk 0115 0115
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CHAPTER 5 ■ HUMANISM IN THE
EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT
STEPHEN LUDWIG
The emergency department (ED) environment is fraught with challenges. It
is a place of high-patient acuity often buried in a sea of routine and
sometimes mundane care. It is a place of high emotion. Patients and
families are worried, even panicked, by the onset or progression of illness
that they may not understand. The ED practitioner must have a broad skill
set from diagnostician to therapeutic interventionist. There are patient
populations and family configurations that are extremely diverse. The
children are also diverse in age, skill sets, language and social interactions
from the preverbal baby to the recalcitrant, possibly sullen, adolescent.
There is most often no pre-existing relationship between the medical staff
and the patient. Amidst all these challenges the ED physician must maintain
their professionalism and their humanism.
WHAT IS PROFESSIONALISM?
Professionalism is a set of behaviors that defines the way a competent
physician thinks and behaves. There are many tenants to professionalism
best detailed in a report edited by Harold Sox and shown in Table 5.1 .
Being a professional is a process that evolves throughout the course of
one’s career. The ED physician must always strive to be professional yet
ultimately it is a goal that can never be achieved in every patient
interaction.
WHAT IS HUMANISM?
Humanism is a mindset and a component of the practice of medicine that
balances the objective, scientific, professionalism and the warmth, empathy,
concern and compassion for the patient, his/her culture, family and
community. Jordan Cohen has written that “humanism is the passion that
drives professionalism.” A definition of humanism by Martimianakis et al.
that resonates is: The ability to provide care based on the health
professional’s ability to maintain the perspective that the professional and
