Time to Bring Back Emotions into the Healthcare Conversation
We are the silenced screams behind hospital doors. The tear-stained faces beneath fluorescent lights. The trembling hands clutching discharge papers filled with instructions but empty of compassion.
I've sat in those sterile rooms, watching the seconds tick by on wall clocks while medical professionals rushed between patients—their eyes focused on charts but rarely on the human being before them. We've all been there, haven't we? Reduced to symptoms, lab values, and diagnostic codes while our fears, hopes, and humanity evaporate into the clinical air.
It's time we speak this truth: healthcare has lost its heart.
The Patients We've Forgotten
The statistics are staggering. Nearly 40% of patients report feeling that their emotional needs were completely overlooked during medical encounters. Behind each percentage point is a person—a mother receiving a devastating diagnosis without a hand to hold, a teenager battling depression met with clinical detachment instead of connection, an elderly man facing his mortality while being treated as merely another case to manage.
We patients have been screaming into the void:
"We were there in our beds, wheelchairs, and homes while you were dancing the night away. We sat in silence, patiently waiting. We did try. We cried, complained, wrote, shouted, but nothing helped. Healthcare was not designed for patients nor around our issues."
This isn't mere sentiment—it's survival. Studies consistently show that emotional support directly correlates with improved health outcomes. Patients who feel heard heal faster. Those who trust their providers adhere better to treatment plans. The emotional component isn't supplementary—it's fundamental to effective care.
The Providers We're Burning Out
But this isn't a one-sided equation. Our healthcare workers are drowning in a system that crushes their innate compassion. They entered this field with beating hearts full of purpose, only to be systematically trained to detach, distance, and "maintain professionalism" at the cost of their humanity.
The burnout statistics are devastating: 63% of physicians report symptoms of burnout. Nurse suicide rates outpace the general population. The very system designed to heal is breaking its healers.
I've watched doctors fight back tears after delivering difficult news, only to straighten their white coats and move robotically to the next room. I've seen nurses work 16-hour shifts without breaks, their compassion fatigue eventually transforming into protective emotional numbness.
They aren't the enemy. They're casualties of the same broken system.
Resilience Without Resources Is Gaslighting
The healthcare industry's answer to this emotional wasteland? Resilience training. As if the problem lies with providers and patients who simply aren't "tough enough" rather than with systems designed to prioritize efficiency over humanity.
Let's call this what it is: gaslighting on an institutional scale.
True resilience cannot exist without resources. Without time for meaningful patient interactions. Without support for healthcare workers processing trauma. Without recognition that emotions aren't inefficiencies to be engineered away but essential data points in the healing process.
The Empathy Crisis
We face nothing short of an empathy crisis in healthcare. When medical schools select for academic brilliance while undervaluing emotional intelligence, when hospital systems incentivize volume over quality of interaction, when insurance companies dictate care based on algorithms rather than human needs—we create perfect conditions for this crisis to flourish.
Yet research from the Cleveland Clinic shows that empathic care reduces hospital stays by 40%. Harvard studies demonstrate that empathic providers face significantly fewer malpractice suits. The business case for compassion is ironclad, even for those unmoved by the moral imperative.
Bridging the Divide
"We are the watchers on the tower, the blowers of the silent horn." And now, we must do more than watch and warn—we must build bridges across this empathy divide.
This means:
- Redesigning medical education to elevate emotional intelligence alongside clinical knowledge
- Creating healthcare systems that measure compassionate care as rigorously as they track RVUs
- Implementing team-based approaches that distribute the emotional labor of healing
- Centering patient voices in policy decisions and organizational leadership
The path forward isn't mysterious—it's already illuminated by pockets of excellence showing what's possible when we bring emotions back into healthcare.
The Revolution of Caring
This isn't some soft, optional upgrade to our healthcare system. This is its salvation. When we restore the emotional core of medicine, we don't just improve patient experiences—we rescue a profession in crisis and fundamentally transform health outcomes.
The most powerful medicine has always been human connection. It's time we prescribed it in abundance.
Let's reclaim healthcare's soul before it's too late for us all.
I'm Roi Shternin, and I don't just advocate for patients—I fight for us with every fiber of my being. My journey began not in medical school but in hospital beds, where I experienced firsthand the clinical efficiency that saves lives yet too often leaves souls untouched.
After navigating the labyrinth of healthcare as a patient, I transformed my frustration into action by founding Patient Innovation Israel. Here, I champion the radical yet simple notion that patients deserve both excellent clinical care and profound human dignity—not as separate offerings, but as an integrated whole.
When I speak at healthcare conferences, I don't come with PowerPoints full of platitudes. I bring uncomfortable truths, personal testimony, and the collective voice of patients who remain unseen. My presentations leave healthcare leaders both unsettled and inspired—exactly where transformation begins.
"We don't need your pity," I often declare to rooms full of medical professionals. "We need your partnership."
My work spans continents, influencing policy at the highest levels while remaining deeply rooted in individual patient experiences. Every day, I push forward with a single question driving me: How might we create healthcare systems that heal both bodies and spirits?
When I'm not challenging healthcare conventions, you'll find me mentoring emerging patient leaders, consulting with forward-thinking health systems, and reminding medical professionals that behind every chart is a human story waiting to be acknowledged—a story that matters just as much as the diagnosis code.
Follow my journey and join the movement at roishternin.com or @RoiShternin.