The Healing Power of Loving Kindness for Patients, for Providers, and for Life

In this moving episode of Wellness Connection MD, Dr. Jim McMinn and Coach Lindsay Mathews explore a subject medical education rarely gives its due: the intersection of medicine and loving kindness. Drawing on nearly four decades of clinical practice — and his own experiences as a patient — Dr. McMinn makes the case that empathy and compassion belong at the center of healthcare, not at the margins.

The episode opens with the show's mission: honest, commercial-free, unbiased information on functional, integrative, lifestyle, and wellness medicine. From there, the conversation turns to the heart of the matter — how the way a provider shows up in the room, beyond clinical competence alone, changes everything about the patient experience.

Dr. McMinn speaks from both sides of the stethoscope, reflecting on the difference a practitioner's humanity makes in the exam room. He invites listeners to recall their own encounters with healthcare providers — and how compassion, or its absence, shaped those moments.

This episode challenges the conventional priorities of medical training, arguing that loving kindness is not a soft add-on but an essential pillar of healing. It's a must-listen for patients, providers, and anyone who believes healthcare should treat the whole person — with warmth, dignity, and genuine care.

Compassionate care isn't just a nicety — it's good medicine. It:

• Improves patient satisfaction
• Improves clinical outcomes
• Reduces provider burnout
• Lessens malpractice risk
• Improves the quality of our everyday lives
• And brings back the joy of practicing medicine

Key Topics Covered

• The intersection of medicine and loving kindness
• Why compassion and empathy deserve a central place in medical education
• The provider-patient relationship from both perspectives
• How a practitioner's humanity transforms the care experience
• Personal reflections from decades of clinical practice and patienthood

Ultimately, this episode is about bringing the CARE back to healthcare.

Transcript

Compassion As The Hidden Treatment

SPEAKER_01 0:00

What if the single most powerful tool in medicine isn't a prescription, a procedure, or a scan, but instead it's a doctor who actually cares? I'm Dr. Jim McMinn, and this is Wellness Connection MD, where you'll find honest, unbiased, commercial-free, up-to-date, and always evidence-based information about functional, integrative, and lifestyle medicine. In this episode, we discuss the intersection of medicine and loving-kindness, why compassion and empathy belong at the center of health care and not at the margins. Think back to your last visit with the doctor. You probably remember the diagnosis, but I'll bet even more you remember how they made you feel. After nearly 40 years of medical practice and more time as a patient than I would like, I'm convinced compassionate care isn't a nicety, it's good medicine. We bring you the evidence to show you that it improves outcomes, reduces burnout, brings back the joy of healing, reduces malpractice risk, and improves the financial bottom line. So if you've ever felt unseen in the exam room or you're feeling burnout as a medical provider, then this one's for you. Together, let's bring back the care to healthcare.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Welcome to the Wellness Connection MD Podcast with Dr. McMinn and Coach Lindsay, where we bring you the latest up-to-date evidence-based information on a wide variety of health and wellness topics, along with practical take-home solutions. Dr. McMinn is a registered certified healthcare. And now, on to the show with Dr. McMahon, Coach Lindsay.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection MD Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm Dr. Jim McMahon. I'm here with Coach Lindsay Matthews. Together we bring you the evidence-based podcast with honest, commercial-free, unbiased, and up-to-date information about functional, integrative lifestyle and wellness medicine. We're so glad you could join us today. Well, good morning, Coach. It's great to see you again.

SPEAKER_03 2:18

Hey, Dr. Matt. Great to be back here with you and our listeners today for a topic I really hope people do not scroll past. You know, I think this topic can be immediately impactful, but also have a long life-altering positive result if we really tune into it.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

There we go, for patients and providers, as we will prove.

Why Patients Remember Feelings

SPEAKER_01 2:40

So, you know, coach, we're going to talk about a subject today that I think is not discussed enough in medicine, and that is the intersection of medicine and loving-kindness. We think that this is a topic that doesn't always get a seat at the table in medical education, and yet, in our view, it belongs at the very center of it. This topic is deeply personal to me. I have lived it from both sides of the stethoscope, as a provider for 40 years and as a patient myself, and I can tell you from both vantage points, empathy and compassion matter more than most of us appreciate. The way that a provider shows up in the room, not just their clinical competence, but their humanity, changes everything about that experience. If you think back to your own experiences with your interactions in the medical environments, I think most of you listeners out there can relate to what I'm talking about here today.

SPEAKER_03 3:24

Today on the show, as we always do, we're going to bring the evidence to demonstrate to you that the practice of loving kindness in medicine improves outcomes in four main ways. Then we're going to discuss the benefits of a loving-kindness practice in everyday life. So, starting our discussion out, let's talk about the benefits of loving-kindness uh approaches to healthcare. And here's what the data shows. Number one, it improves patient satisfaction. Number two, it helps improve clinical outcomes. Three, it helps the provider find more joy and meaning in the practice of medicine and helps reduce burnout. And then four, it helps improve the reputation and the financial bottom line of the institution at whole.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

And to me, this is such an important topic. I would like to see mandatory courses taught in every medical school and every nursing school in this country on how to improve the patient experience, not as an elective and not as a single half-day workshop, but as a core curriculum requirement with the same seriousness as given to clinical skills. Because here's the truth that most of us eventually learn the hard way. We're all going to be patients someday. And when that day comes, when you're the one lying on the gurney, scared and vulnerable, hoping that somebody will come along and really listen to you, believe you, and care for you, then the experience that you have in this situation will help you understand with complete clarity why this matters.

SPEAKER_03 4:50

Agreed. This episode is for both sides of the exam table. For patients who have ever felt like just another number in a system that doesn't really care about them. And then for all the healthcare professionals who went into medicine to help people. And somewhere along the way, they forgot their value system and started to feel burnt out. As a provider, a practice of loving-kindness can help maintain your passion for practicing medicine because you're not just treating disease, like, for instance, the chest pain and room two. You're treating a real live, vulnerable human being that has a name, that has feelings, fears, and emotions, and who desperately needs for you to bring compassion to the bedside. And then here's the kicker. Studies actually show that a practice of loving kindness may actually help the provider too. So the data suggests that providers who practice with loving kindness actually live longer. That's a bonus there, Dr. Mack.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Yeah, sign me up, coach. At some point in our lives, most of us have been graced by the presence of a doctor, a nurse, or some other healthcare professional who brought to the bedside a level of kindness that really made the difference for us in a time of need. On the other hand, most of us have also experienced rudeness, condescension, apathy, or some other attitude that caused us to leave the doctor's office feeling confused, disappointed, or even angry.

ER Story Kindness Versus Rush

SPEAKER_01 6:15

So let's use a realistic thought experiment to break it down, coach. Let's imagine a busy ER where we just happen to have a patient in room one and a virtual clone of that patient in room two. The patients are the exact same age, the same clinical problem, and brought with them the exact same hopes and fears. In bed one, we have Robert, a 52-year-old man with chest pain. His wife Carol sits in the corner, worried stiff about her beloved husband and the father of their three children. In room two, we have his twin brother, Mike, exact same age, same complaint, same vital signs, who also waits with his wife beside him. So in our thought experiment, Dr. Smith enters room one. He's been on since about seven this morning. He's had a rough day in the ER. He briskly rushes into the room and doesn't introduce himself to the patient or the wife, looks hurried and distracted, and barely even looks at them as he goes over to the computer and starts typing as he's filling out the computer form and checking the required boxes. He never sits down, he hardly touches the patient. He goes on to explain what is happening in medical ease that the patient and the wife cannot possibly understand. As Dr. Smith rushes out of the room, Robert and Carol look at each other like, whoa, what just happened here? Unfortunately, I'm painting a picture here, which I'm sorry to say happens all too often. At about the same time, Dr. Jones is assigned to attend to bed too. When she enters the room, she introduces herself to Mike and his wife. She pulls up a stool and sits down. She looks him in the eye, and when she's asked questions, she really seems to be listening and caring. Mike starts to relax almost immediately, with a sense that they're in good hands and that Dr. Jones is going to take good care of them today. And so now let's take a look at this from the doctor's perspective. Dr. Smith, who took care of our first patient in bed one, got no joy from the interaction. In fact, probably Eda feels a little bit apathy or maybe even a bit frustrated about the negative interaction. Seems like his rough tone caused the patient to give it right back to him. So he's also thinking stuff like, he's had this pain for 10 hours. Why'd he wait for my shift? Or his primary care doctor is at the other hospital, so why did he show up in my ER in the middle of the night? On the other hand, when Dr. Jones walks back to the workstation, she doesn't feel depleted. The interaction in the room was warm and friendly and caring. She explained what was going on in terms that the patient could easily understand. She actually feels like the interaction meant something. When she filled out her application for medical school, she said that she wanted to help people, and that's exactly what she's doing in a very meaningful way. So in the two rooms, the same ER, the same night, the same diagnosis, you had a very different experience for the patients, the families, and the doctors involved. But in our thought experiment, the story doesn't end there. Three days later, the hospital's patient relations office gets a handwritten letter. In the letter, the patient and his wife thanked Dr. Jones by name for her excellent care. And on the same day, the hospital received a complaint letter about their negative experience in the ER with Dr. Smith. The family felt rushed, dismissed, uncertain whether Dr. Smith had really taken Robert's concerns seriously. And when the quarterly patient satisfaction scores came in, it was no surprise to anyone that Dr. Jones's numbers were consistently at the top of the department, while Dr. Smith's scores were dragging the department down. Same training, same credentials, same hospital, but light years apart in one metric that matters so much to patients. Did someone in that room really care about me? And coach, this thought experiment is really not that far-fetched. Y'all might think that this is all just about some polyanabias, but I've seen it with my own eyes in the ER many times.

SPEAKER_03 9:40

And I'd like to share with y'all another true story about loving kindness in medicine. One of our favorite nurses at the clinic was a nurse named Linda. And what made her extraordinary wasn't clinical skill, though she did have plenty of that. It was this. So when she went to the door of the waiting room to bring a patient back, the moment that patient came through the door, she would put her arm gently over their round their shoulder and her sweet, calming, and southern voice, she would say these simple words, Hi, I'm Linda, and I'll be taking care of you today. And that was it. But she did it every time without fail. And just the power of touch and a quiet promise that someone's was there to look out for the patient in their time of need. And that simple act set the tone for the whole visit. So when Dr. Mack walked in the room, the patient was already at ease. Linda's approach was so simple and yet so extraordinary. It didn't take any more time, it didn't cost any more money. And yet it really improved the patient's entire experience immeasurably. They should teach what Linda did in all the nursing schools in the country. It was just simple and just a pure expression of loving kindness. And if we ever find ourselves as the patient in the gown, we should all be so lucky to have a nurse like Linda taking care of us, right, Dr. Mack?

SPEAKER_01 11:04

That's right. And you know, coach, I gotta tell on you a little bit. For a period of time, my sister Cindy worked at our clinic. And this was not just pure nepotism. Cindy was actually an excellent nurse practitioner, much beloved by her patients. Cindy had a habit of coming out in the hall where she could sort of spread her charts out on the counter. And she just happened to be in a place where she could overhear you, coach, on the phone with patients. And Cindy came to me one day with a genuine look, and she said something I'll never forgotten. She said, if you were a patient, it would be impossible to get angry with Lindsay on the phone. She's just so nice to everybody. So, coach, you know, that seems to be your default, is loving-kindness. It's not a performance. And and I don't know if you folks out there can hear Lindsay's voice on the podcast, but I've witnessed it every day in the clinic. And I know her mama Diane. So Diane is pure grace. And so I know where Lindsay got it from. For Lindsay, it's not just the way she acts, it's a way of life in every aspect of her life. And it radiates out to the whole staff. So people feel it. And Lindsay sets a great example for all the others in the office, including me.

SPEAKER_03 12:07

Thank you, Dr. Mack. That's a high compliment coming from you and very kind. Cindy has been such a blessing to me, and I really feel honored to that that you guys remember me in that way. Thank you. And truly, my mom is an angel. But I think one thing that she and I both share is this deep ingrained sense of purpose in our lives, a connection to something deeper. And I really believe that that's been the driving force behind anything good in me. And I honestly, I know many days I can't manufacture loving kindness on my own. So for me, it's something that really flows from God and He's the source of it. But Dr. Mack, I've always had such a deep respect for Mother Teresa. She once said, I see God in every human being. And so you don't have to share her theology or even be religious to feel the weight of that statement. I feel God in every, I see God in every human being. At its core, what she's saying is that every person in front of us carries something sacred. And in healthcare, especially, we have this incredible opportunity to honor that sacredness, to truly see the person in front of us with dignity, compassion, and kindness. And I think that's part of what makes loving kindness so powerful. It reminds people that they matter. And sometimes being deeply seen in a hard, vulnerable moment can be healing in ways that medicine alone can't fully explain.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

You know, Mother Teresa has always been one of my heroes as well, coach. And another quote of hers, I love is I never look at the masses as my responsibility. I look at the individual. I can only love one person at a time. I can only feed one person at a time. Just one, one, one. And again, let's kind of strip away the religion for a moment and think about that in a clinical strategy. I know sometimes in the ER, you'd be running behind and just look out at this mass of sick and sometimes desperate and miserable, scared, vulnerable people. Or you look in the waiting room and you think, oh my God, it's overwhelming. But you just have to take it one by one. And when you're in that room with that patient, you have to be fully present in that moment with that patient. And people can sense it. And it is so meaningful to that patient. And it will also make your day better as a doctor or as a nurse. And it may help to bring back the joy of practicing medicine and to help prevent burnout. You know, coach, there's so many burnout medical people these days, especially I think around COVID time. And I get it, it's incredibly stressful. But uh again, if you can sort of go to work every day and look at it as an opportunity to practice loving kindness, then it just is so much more meaningful. You know, coach, I I I practiced medicine for 40 years and I loved it to the very last day. I've never got burnt out because I came to work every day, uh, looking at that as an opportunity to spread compassion, empathy, loving kindness. And it was just a a wonderful opportunity for me to do that. And so uh I'm very grateful uh for the opportunity to to be a doctor and to to have that medium for the expression of loving kindness.

Evidence That Compassion Works

SPEAKER_03 15:13

You know, listeners, we promised that we would keep this evidence-based. So let's take a look at the scale of the problem because the data here is really impossible to ignore. Harvard-led survey published in Health Affairs found that nearly half of patients believe that the US healthcare system does not provide compassionate care. Half, half of patients believe that. That's alarming and really sad. Most healthcare institutions now measure patient satisfaction formally through various tools. I'm sure all of you out there have gotten an immediate survey after a doctor's visit or hospital stay. Hospitals, departments, and providers, everybody gets rated. And all those scores affect accreditation, reputation, and then reimbursement. So, along with an ethical case for compassionate care, there's also an effect on the business financial bottom line that we see here too.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Yeah, that's right, coach. And you know, here's what the research shows satisfaction scores don't rise because some fancy facilities or slick technology. They rise when people feel genuinely heard and cared for. A comprehensive review published in 2023 found that clinical outcomes, patient satisfaction, caregiver burnout, cost of care, malpractice litigation are all linked to one thing: the degree of compassion patients experience. One thing, coach, with multiple downstream effects.

SPEAKER_03 16:43

And the malpractice piece deserves a mention too. Patients don't typically sue physicians that they felt truly cared for them. They're more likely to sue when they feel dismissed, rushed, or invisible. Compassion is not just good medicine, it's also good risk management. And it costs nothing, but it can save millions in a malpractice suit gone bad.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Coach, I have a real story to tell with you early on in my ER career. Had an unfortunate case way back then to kind of illustrate this point. A gentleman came in to the ER with kind of vague atypical symptoms, which turned out to be heart-related. Unfortunately, it was a perfect storm of dysfunction in the ER for this gentleman since one of his labs, a critical lab, kind of fell through the cracks. And had the lab really emerged, uh then I think outcomes would have been different. He would have been admitted to the hospital. But instead, he was sent home, where he promptly died of a heart attack. And his wife called the ER to ask about the care he had received. And I asked her to come in to the ER the next day, so we'd have a sit-down talk. And she did so, and we had a heart-to-heart talk. I told her exactly what happened. And this is bizarre, coach. Not only did we not get sued, but I got a thank you letter from her. Thanking me for my candor and my compassion. And quite frankly, coach, before this happened, I never would have imagined that a doctor could get a thank you letter from the family when a loved one died. But this is a true story. It just illustrates the power of compassionate care and honest communication.

SPEAKER_03 18:12

Wow. That's that's a really strong story. And I bet I bet you probably very vividly remember that conversation.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 18:21

And it made an impact on you. Like we're saying, it's you know, it that impact goes both ways. Now let's spend a moment on the actual biology that is going on here with loving-kindness and medicine.

How Kindness Changes Biology

SPEAKER_03 18:35

Because this is where it gets genuinely remarkable. When a patient experiences a compassionate encounter, something measurable actually happens in their body. Compassionate interactions trigger enhanced parasympathetic activity. And that's your rest and digest system kicking in, along with the release of oxytocin, often called that bonding hormone. That combination reduces inflammation, it lowers cortisol, and it modulates pain perception. Think of it like a dimmer switch on your stress response. The fight or flight sympathetic nervous system gets dialed down, and the calming sympathetic nervous system gets dialed up. And then what happens? Healing becomes more possible, not just metaphorically, but truly biologically.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

And also, coach, the immune system works better. Inflammation decreases, pain signals quiet, and this cascade begins the moment a patient feels genuinely heard and seen. Brain imaging confirms it, coach. A 2013 functional MRI study showed that when doctors used patient-centered compassionate communication, patients had measurably reduced activation of one of the brain's key pain processing regions during actual pain stimuli. Compassion didn't just change how the patients reported their pain, it actually changed how their brain processed pain. The neurosignature of suffering was literally diminished by compassionate care.

SPEAKER_03 20:04

This healing often happens due to relatively small gestures. Sitting down instead of like standing really tall over a patient, calling a patient by name, asking what are you most worried about? Saying things like, I believe you, or explaining an additional time without being irritated, and in a language that the patient can really understand. Maybe it's placing a hand on a shoulder and providing calming, reassuring words, so they also help. These moments feel small to us or insignificant to the medical folks in the room, but the patients never forget it. They'll forget the medical words, the medical jargon, but they remember the humanity and the kindness and when someone looked them in the eye.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

So a systemic review back in 2014 analyzed 13 randomized controlled trials, they found that the patient clinician relationship has a statistically significant effect on actual health outcomes. Let me be clear. So the compassion interaction itself is a therapeutic treatment.

SPEAKER_03 21:12

So let's talk about adherence. And this is remarkable. When physicians communicate with warmth, clarity, and empathy, the odds of a patient actually following the treatment plan more than doubles. And it shows up directly in disease outcomes. A 2011 study in academic medicine followed nearly 900 diabetic patients across 29 different physicians. 56% of the patients with high empathy physicians achieved good A1C control. So that's an actual lab number compared to 40% with the lower empathy physicians. For LDL cholesterol, 59% versus 44%. So these aren't marginal differences. These are the differences between a disease that's controlled and then one that's wreaking havoc in the body.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

Another study back in 2012 looked at nearly 21,000 diabetic patients cared for by over 200 primary care physicians. Patients of high empathy physicians had a 41% lower odds of acute metabolic complications like diabetic ketoacidosis and hyperosmolar coma. These are the kind of things that land you in the ICU. So physician empathy wasn't just improving lab numbers, it was actually keeping people out of the hospital and out of the ICU. So once again, this is not just being nice. It's about good medicine.

SPEAKER_03 22:43

Even the common cold response to compassion. A 20, a 2009 study in the Journal of Family Medicine found that patients who rated their clinician as high in empathy had shorter and less severe colds and measurably higher levels of markers of immune activation. Compassion didn't just make them feel better, it improved their immune function and changed the course of the disease itself.

Empathy As Burnout Antidote

SPEAKER_01 23:10

So let's switch to the other side of the stethoscope or the other side of the gallon coach because uh the provider side of the story is just as compelling and less often told. In 2025, the American Medical Association reported that over 41% of physicians are experiencing at least one symptom of burnout. This is a true crisis in healthcare, coach, and in the lives of these physicians. These amazing doctors worked long and hard to achieve their goal of being a physician, and now they're beginning to wonder if it was all worth it. Did they go into the wrong profession? I spent 40 years in medicine, and 20 of those years were in a busy emergency department. I know what it feels like when the system is squeezing the humanity out of you and when the inbox never empties, when the wait times are long and the waiting room is full, the charge nurse and the bean counters are cracking the whip on you to run faster on your treadmill and crank out more patients. But due to a dysfunctional electronic medical record system, you're spending more and more time behind the computer than you are at the bedside with patients crashing all around you. The patient starts to feel like the enemy, and it can be absolutely overwhelming, and yet lives are on the line. And you do this hour after hour, shift after shift, and year after year. And it can really get heavy, coach. And I can certainly understand why some doctors may begin to lose their love of medicine and feel burnout.

SPEAKER_03 24:24

And most proposed solutions to burnout are about subtraction. So less hours, reduce the hours, reduce the patients, reduce documentation. And all of those would help, but we're offering something different today, something additive, something you already have. And you can use starting today that doesn't cost a penny. Again, meaning more empathy results in less burnout. And even during the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, a 2020 study found that empathy and perceived meaningful work were burnout protectors for both physicians and nurses. So the data's clear. Compassionate, empathetic, loving kindness care results in greater job satisfaction and less burnout for providers.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

And coach, here is a study that really blew me away when I first read it. In 2013, a study published in the American Journal of Public Health followed 846 people over time. They measured stress levels, especially whether those people engaged in helping others and mortality. The findings more stress reliably predicted higher mortality. Except among those who regularly engaged in compassionate activities towards others. For those people who focused on helping others, the link between stress and death was completely eliminated. Not reduced, coach, but completely eliminated. Whoa, coach, sign me up.

SPEAKER_03 26:19

Great. Certainly, a provider needs to guard against compassion fatigue. We can't get so involved that we let it ruin us. But if we can find that right balance and manage our compassion, we can actually reduce burnout, make our jobs more enjoyable, extend our work span, and can actually reduce mortality. So that's evidence, folks. It's pretty powerful.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

Yeah, really is coach. Uh another study from 2014 found that the protective effects of empathy against burnout was mediated through meaningful work. Compassion gives you the sense of purpose and that actively buffers against the grind. The more generally you connect, the more you're reminded why you went into medicine in the first place.

SPEAKER_03 27:04

So if you go to work every day grumpy, rushed, and emotionally checked out, you're going to get grumpiness in return from your patients and your coworkers. And that creates a negative feedback loop that can make your day and your career miserable. But if you go to work with kindness in your heart, express it to your patients and coworkers, then you get something very different back. You get positive feedback, you get gratitude, a sense of having made a difference. You go home feeling like the work was worth it. And over time, that's the difference between a career that depletes you and one that sustains you.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

Now, coach, I've talked earlier about your amazing skills in this area, and I have witnessed it firsthand. And you're a master at communicating with patients with compassion, empathy, and loving-kindness. You do it every single time. You never have a day off when it comes to bringing a loving-kindness attitude to the patient and also to the workplace. As I said earlier, your amazing mother Diana certainly has something to do with this. But please share with us any other formative factors that helped you arrive at this place, or or maybe some tips that will help us, uh mere morals, be more like you in this area.

SPEAKER_03 28:18

Now, Dr. Mack, I think you could teach the class on this. I learned so much from you and your approach that I heard you so often say, your one-by-one approach that you got from Mother Teresa and just the impact that you've had on me personally in my life and my whole family's life. My husband, my mom, my dad. So I I really think we could reverse that question back at you. But for me, loving kindness really starts with something simple but profound. And it's the golden rule: treat others the way you want to be treated. And that sounds basic, but in healthcare, it's really grounding. If I were scared, if I were in pain, if someone I loved was vulnerable, how would I hope that someone would speak to me? And how would I want to be seen? And that question changes things. It it just reminds me that the person in front of me has a story that I don't really fully know. And personally, again, my faith is a huge part of that. There's plenty of days I know I cannot manufacture the loving kindness on my own. And so for me, it comes from staying connected to God and asking him to help me see people with those fresh eyes, the way that he sees them. And after that, it just becomes practical. You got to slow down, you got to make eye contact, use all those, you know, I think active listening and really working on that as a skill is huge. And offering compassion. People can feel when they're really seen. And I think loving kindness often begins there. Treating the person in front of you the way you hope someone would treat you, especially on your worst day. So it's loving kindness is not like a personality trait that you either have or you don't. It's not reserved for people who are born to be naturally warm or emotionally gifted or who just happen to have a wonderful mom like I did. It's a practice. It really is a practice. It's a skill that you that anyone can cultivate deliberately, just like any other clinical competency. I really think people can develop this in themselves.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

Yeah, coach. Well, thank you so much. Uh I think it starts with with everything, is awareness that this is a big issue and then intention that we're going to all try to get better in this area, whether it be the individual or the uh the practice, the corporation, you know, it it all matters. So uh thank you so much for sharing that with us. That's really uh profound. And again, I've witnessed it in person so many times with you. And so thanks for sharing. But

Trainable Behaviors That Build Trust

SPEAKER_01 30:56

you know, coach, there's a really interesting formal meditation practice called loving-kindness meditation that's been around for a long time. It's been studied extensively in clinical populations. And now you might think this is just kind of a frou-frou, kind of woke concept, but let's look at the data. Uh, again, we we're all about the evidence. And from the very beginning with our podcast, we have been evidence-based. A randomized controlled trial published in 2014 found that even a single 10-minute loving-kindness meditation session increased social connection and positive affect towards others. And another randomized controlled clinical trial in 2023 studied 66 neonatal ICU nurses, one of the most emotionally intensive environments in all of medicine. And after just one month of daily loving-kindness meditation, a practice that costs nothing and takes minutes a day, the nurse's experience significantly reduced compassion fatigue compared to the control group.

SPEAKER_03 31:50

You know, Dr. Mack, loving-kindness doesn't transmit through intention alone. It needs a vehicle, and that vehicle is communication and specific, learnable, repeatable behaviors that carry that feeling of genuine care from one person to another. And involved in within communication includes body language. And I think that's huge. So, for instance, when you come into a patient's room, sit down instead of standing way up high, or just trying to get on that eye level with people. There's actually a remarkable study to back up this suggestion. Researchers at the University of Kansas conducted a prospective randomized controlled trial with 120 postdoctoral patients. Half had their physicians stand at the bedside, and half had their physician sit. The actual time spent at the bedside was identical in both groups. But here's what happened: the patients whose physicians sat perceived the visit as significantly longer. They also reported a more positive interaction and a better understanding of their condition. So, same doctor, same information, same amount of time, but completely different experience from the patient point of view that produced produced by nothing more than pulling up a chair.

SPEAKER_01 33:17

And uh other simple tricks, uh, coach, include just introducing yourself. You know, I always made a point of introducing myself not only to the patient, but the whole family. And make eye contact. Use the patient's name, use open-ended questions like uh what are you most worried about? to help me understand what happened, what matters most to you here, and acknowledge what you hear before you respond to it.

SPEAKER_03 33:38

In a busy practice or a busy ER, you're just not going to have that much time with these patients. But you can make the time you do have feel more generous, more present, more human by employing some of these basic tools.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

Another tool I learned many years ago in the ER from a renowned emergency physician and professor at the University of Michigan by the name of Dr. Greg Henry is called the philosophy of yes. It goes something like this: Go, when a patient asks you for something, whenever humanly possible, let the first word out of your mouth be yes. Not maybe, not we'll see, but yes. And then you can begin your qualifiers. So, for instance, a patient asks if they can eat something, you say, yes, but after we get the GI study. Or they might say, Can we bring my family back to the room? And you can say, Yes, I'll go get them right after I finish my exam. So again, you can have qualifiers, but you start the sentence with yes. It just sets a whole different tone. When you say yes, you've oriented yourself towards the patient's needs instead of the system's constraints. You've signaled that you're on their side. You started the sentence in a place of partnership rather than resistance. And oh, by the way, the philosophy of yes can also be used in many other aspects of life, including the workplace, family, and marital relationships. I think it's really helpful in marital relationships.

SPEAKER_03 34:57

Yes. Yes, it is. One meta-analysis when physicians received communication training, the odds of patient adherence to the treatment plan went up by 62%. That's not a soft outcome. Communication skills are clinical skills. They can be taught, they can be practiced, and they produce measurable results. I think that once you start using these skills, you will find that your job as a provider will be much more satisfying.

SPEAKER_01 35:31

And coach, another study called the rudeness study, which was done in uh 2025, a randomized controlled trial published in the journal Pediatrics, found that a single rude comment from an outside observer measurably reduced both diagnostic and procedural performance in clinical teams. So in this case, an outside observer would be somebody like a visiting expert who is merely observing the team, not even participating in the care. So rudeness aimed at colleagues doesn't just hurt feelings, it increases medical errors. The way providers treat each other directly affects the care that our patients receive. So here we see that even kindness in the curbside consult is also good medicine.

SPEAKER_03 36:09

In just a bit, we're going to transition into talking about the application of loving kindness to everyday life.

AI Empathy And Job Security

SPEAKER_03 36:16

However, before we leave the medical conversation, I want to share something that should stop every clinician in their tracks. 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis published in the British Medical Bulletin analyzed 15 studies comparing AI chatbots to human healthcare telemedicine professionals on their empathy ratings. So 13 of those 15 studies found significantly higher empathy ratings for the AI chatbot. So I'm gonna rephrase that. Patients actually found the robot doctors were nicer than the human doctors. And it wasn't even a contest, it wasn't even close. And an earlier landmark study also found that AI responses to medical questions were rated higher on both quality and empathy than human physician responses. And what is our world coming to, Dr. Mack? That this is happening.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

That's I know, coach, it's crazy, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 37:22

Bots can can seem more human than humans.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

Yeah, coach, that's just amazing. Let's kind of sink into that for a moment. Uh, like a piece of software with no nervous system, no lived experience, no capacity to actually feel anything is actually perceived as more empathetic than human physicians. And it's not because the AI is warmer, but because the human, on the other end, is burned out, rushed, buried in documentation. We are losing an empathy contest to robots, coach, and the robot doesn't even know what empathy is. So if you are in denial that there is a problem here, then this study should wake you up.

SPEAKER_03 38:01

Then great. And here's the real message. Many experts now believe that AI will eventually replace significant portions of physicians. And that's right. Doctors will be in the unemployment line with everybody else, whether it be diagnostics or documentation, triage, even treatment planning. The algorithms are coming for us. And in some areas, they're already here. That conversation is happening at the highest levels of medicine and it's not going away. Corporations are salivating at the thought of replacing humans with chatbots and robots. Robots never have a bad day. They can work 24-7, including holidays, and they never call in sick. They are never grouchy. And in the near future, they will be smarter than any human doctor who has ever lived with the instant retrieval of the complete encyclopedia of medical knowledge. And most importantly, they're cheaper. So for corporations, the savings can be dramatic. They just can't wait to replace us humans. And, you know, I that includes us nurses too. I don't think that that you're immune to this if you're a nurse. I it's coming for the entire medical field, really.

SPEAKER_01 39:16

That's right. That's right. But here's what a robot can't do, coach. They can't pull up a chair and look into the eye of a frightened patient. They can't put their arm around a shoulder in the waiting room doorway like Linda did. They can't listen to the story and say, I believe you, in a way that is really felt rather than processed. They can't bring 20 years of human experience, including their own vulnerability and their own fears, into the room and use that to connect with another human being in pain. That is irreplaceable, but only if we actually do it.

SPEAKER_03 39:49

So here is perhaps the most practical argument in this entire episode for loving kindness for all levels of medical professionals. The practice of loving kindness may literally help you keep your job. If the system demands and we allow ourselves to become so rushed, so burnt out, so transactional that patients can't tell the difference between us and a chat bot, or even worse, they prefer the robot, then we are making our own selves obsolete. The one thing that will always distinguish a human provider from an artificial one is our capacity for genuine human connection. So for your own preservation, use loving kindness, cultivate it, master it. Because the day our compassion goes away, the robots win.

SPEAKER_01 40:39

And so do the corporations. And it reminds me of my wife, Dr. Show, I always have to mention her on the podcast, but anyways. So, you know, when she goes to the big stores, I won't name names, uh, she often prefers the self-checkout to the regular checkout because the self-checkout is more efficient and never is grumpy. And one more thing, before we transition from the medical arena to the larger picture of the benefits of lovely kindness in everyday life, I want to take a moment to discuss the corporatization of medicine and how this affects our discussion.

Culture Leadership And Corporate Medicine

SPEAKER_01 41:11

So let's face it, the times are changing in medicine. The horse and buggy days are over, and the vast majority of doctors are now employees of corporations, and they are judged for things like productivity and patient satisfaction. Likewise, almost all nurses are employees, with very few owning their own practice of some sort. So these days, with only a few exceptions, we're all working for the man.

SPEAKER_03 41:31

From the patient point of view, you can probably remember an experience with a medical practice that seemed like a well-oiled machine where everybody was nice. You had a great experience with every interaction from the front desk all the way through to sign out. However, all too often these days, instead, I hear complaints of frustration, bad attitudes, dismissal, poor communication, and sometimes outright incompetence.

SPEAKER_01 41:58

And coach, this dichotomy doesn't just apply to medicine. Just to illustrate the point, think about two experiences you've probably had in your own life. Let's uh start with uh the DMV, which is your Department of Motor Vehicles. I I know when I go in there, I can just feel the negative energy right when I walk in the door. They let you know right away with their attitudes that they have the power and the customer is the enemy. In just about every DMV that I have ever been into, it seems like the default orientation is usually negative like that. And I usually leave there feeling frustrated and outright angry after a long wait.

SPEAKER_03 42:30

Conversely, try walking into a Chick-fil-A or a Publix grocery store. Something is different. It's like Dorothy skipping into the land of Oz. Everyone makes eye contact, everybody's helpful. They say things like my pleasure. And the culture is palpable from the moment you arrive all the way through to checkout.

SPEAKER_01 42:50

I know sometimes you know I have to confess. My wife does most of the shopping, but sometimes like when I go to publics and I can't find something, I ask the the guy stocking the shelves where it is. All she has to do is tell me. But every single time he takes me there and shows me where it is. I think it's part of their orientation or whatever. But it's pretty amazing. And and listen, I have no stock in Publix or Chip-A. I'm not trying to promote those businesses. There are many other examples out there, but I just think that that that culture is so palpable. And the difference just is isn't in the individual. Both places hire ordinary people from the same labor pool in the same communities. The difference is culture, deliberately built and maintained with consistency and accountability. And I'm sure there are many examples of both of these extremes in the medical field too. However, an example of a positive side, I'll point out my impression of Mayo Clinic. The moment you walk through the door, everything is different. Everyone at every level is on the same page. Everyone is kind, helpful, thoughtful, professionally, generally oriented towards your well being. And it's not accidental, coach. It's not luck, it's culture. And culture comes from leadership. And we see that immediately. Many walks of life, leadership matters. And by the way, coach, I had a friend recently who had a procedure done at your workplace, UAB, and she had nothing to say but praise for every single person she interacted at UAB. So go, Blazers.

SPEAKER_03 44:14

Glad to hear it. In both cases, whether there be Mayo Clinic or UAB, somebody at the top of that institution put a flag in the ground and said, this is who we are, and this is what we believe in. We are compassionate, caring, and a kind organization. That is not optional here. That is not a suggestion or poster on the wall in the break room. That is our standard. And if you as a provider or an employee cannot genuinely embrace that standard, then this is not the right place for you to work.

SPEAKER_01 44:47

Coach, my mom Martha could have been a great CEO. She had a sign in the kitchen above the door that said, be nice or go home. She meant it. And we all knew what would happen if we incurred her wrath on this dictum. But anyway, I must admit I got into trouble a few times over that. She could have been a great CEO, I promise.

SPEAKER_03 45:04

I love that. That's not harsh. That's just the honest stewardship of a culture that patients depend on. And the data backs it up. Comprehensive 2023 review found that compassion at the institutional level, not just the individual level, is associated with better outcomes, lower cost, reduced burnout, decreased litigation, and in a better financial bottom line.

SPEAKER_01 45:32

But coach, you know, we can't ask clinicians to be kinder while the system purposely burns them out. It certainly makes it more difficult to express loving kindness when you're overwhelmed, dealing with a screwed-up electronic medical record system, not getting the support you need, running two hours behind, and somehow you got to get out of here to go pick up your kids. So the goal is to have compassionate clinicians inside of a compassionate organization with compassionate leadership.

SPEAKER_03 45:58

Okay, now let's transition to the bigger picture of loving-kindness in everyday life, beyond the medical sphere.

Loving-Kindness In Daily Life

SPEAKER_03 46:06

Research suggests that practicing loving-kindness, whether through meditation, like Dr. Mack mentioned, quiet reflection, prayer, or simply making a daily effort to approach others with warmth and compassion, may have surprisingly wide-ranging benefits for everyday life. People who regularly practice loving-kindness often report greater happiness, lower stress, less loneliness, and a stronger sense of connection with others. It may also help reduce anger, resentment, and excessive self-criticism while improving patience, empathy, emotional resilience, and overall life satisfaction. Some studies even suggest positive effects on sleep, relationships, and physiologic stress markers. Perhaps most importantly, loving kindness can subtly change the entire emotional atmosphere around us. It has a way of spreading outwards into families, friendships, workplaces, and communities, often in ways we don't fully realize.

SPEAKER_01 47:10

Okay, coach. Well, that's fine and dandy, but how do you actually make this happen in your work life or your everyday life? Well, one great way is by practicing just a few minutes a day of loving-kindness meditation. We talked about this a little bit earlier. It's a simple contemplative practice with the goal of gently training the mind and the heart towards greater compassion, emotional balance, connection, and goodwill in everyday life. I usually start my day with it just a few minutes. It can change the tone of the whole day. And by the way, there are many of apps and books and podcasts and other resources out there you can explore that have to do with loving-kindness. Just kind of do a little Google search on that and you'll find many resources out there.

SPEAKER_03 47:46

And here are some other simple tips for implementing loving-kindness into your life and daily interactions. Use people's names. The cashier at the grocery store usually has a name tag. Use it. Say, thank you, Maria. She has been invisible to customers all day, and it can change the tenor of her shift. So try to.

SPEAKER_01 48:12

But I'm really making a concerted effort these days to remember people's names and to call them by name. But uh sometimes also just writing it down. Send somebody who is nice to you a thank you note. This day and age is so simple. A text message or an email just takes a few seconds. Even better, a handwritten note. It carries the weight that just a text can never carry. And uh it'll make your day. And guess what? It'll even make yours. I studied from the University of Texas at Austin, found that recipients of such notes felt more appreciated and happier. And interestingly, the act of expressing gratitude also improved the emotional well-being of the people writing the letters.

SPEAKER_03 48:48

Notice the invisible people in your community, the janitor in the hallway, the security guard at the entrance, the person delivering packages in the rain, the guy who picks up your trash. These are people most of us walk past without acknowledging every day. And yet their actions mean so much to us. Just imagine if your trash never got picked up. So let those folks know that you see them and you appreciate them.

SPEAKER_01 49:14

Also, just sometimes just letting someone else go first in line in traffic or in a regular line. This willingness to yield is a small but genuine expression of kindness.

SPEAKER_03 49:24

And assume the generous interpretation. Maybe his wife is in the backseat having a baby and he's trying to get to the ER. Or the colleague who snapped at you is probably overwhelmed. Maybe he got a call from his doctor that day and they found a mass on his x-ray. When your default assumption about other people is charitable, you spend dramatically less energy in resentment, defensiveness, and anger. And this is not about being naive. It's about showing grace in these moments. And that will make your day and their day so much better. Who needs to waste all of that negative energy?

SPEAKER_01 50:08

Yeah, coach, you can spin forever on negative energy looking at these situations. And I think the whole world needs more grace these days, quite frankly. But back in my ear days, I learned to leave judgment outside the room. We don't know what that other person's been through in his life. We don't know what his upbringing was like, uh what his stressors are like. We don't know they had or had a mom like uh Diana, who taught them right and wrong. And maybe they grew up in abusive foster care. But anyway, the bottom line is that we have no idea what makes them tick, what makes them act the way they do, or makes them be in the situation they're in to find themselves in the ER. They're just there for medical care, and I was there to help them. And that's it. So this was not the proper time for me to bring any judgment into the room. So whether it was in the ER or in life, sometimes we just need to cut people some slack, show some grace, and move on. I've certainly had some grace come my way in my lifetime, perhaps in moments when I didn't deserve it, but I'm certainly grateful for it.

SPEAKER_03 51:03

Perhaps the most underrated tool of all is being kind to yourself. The same loving kindness you extend to others, the patience, the understanding, the willingness to see the full human picture, you deserve to extend that inward too. 2016 study found that self-compassion was one of the strongest predictors of burnout protection in healthcare workers. You can't sustain a life of loving kindness from a place of chronic self-criticism. As the flight attendant says on the airplane, put that oxygen mask on yourself first, right?

SPEAKER_01 51:39

Mm-hmm. Yep. And there's an extraordinary thing, Coach. Uh loving kindness doesn't have to be dramatic. These are all just small things like we talked about. They're done with great love, though, and they're backed by solid science. For instance, a study in 2006 published in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that giving, even in small amounts, activates the same reward pathways in the brain as receiving, with oxytocin release, dopamine response, and reduced stress hormones. The brain is literally wired to find joy in generosity and kindness. And as we wrap this up, let me share with you a true story about a night I went out to dinner with my family. At the end of the meal, I asked for the check, and the waiter told me it was already paid for. I was like, whoa, what's going on here? I looked at him with this puzzled look on my face, and he nodded across the room, and there in the corner table was a gentleman I recognized who was a former patient of mine. He caught my eye and smiled and gave me a nod. He had paid for the bill from my entire family. No fanfare, no expectation of anything in return, just a quiet, generous act from someone who wanted to say thank you in the most tangible way that he knew how. So the care and loving kindness I offered him in the exam room years earlier has circled back around to that restaurant table as a gift I never expected.

SPEAKER_03 52:49

I love that story, Dr. Winkman. And it illustrates a powerful loving kindness tool called paying it back, which is a direct personal act of gratitude returned to its source. And that's a beautiful thing. But another version you may also hear is called paying it forward. An example of this is when someone is maybe say in line in a coffee shop and pays for the order of the stranger behind them. That stranger is touched by that unexpected kindness and pays for the person behind them. And so it goes on. You have this chain reaction of small generosities moving through a line of people who've never met, connected by just this willingness of the one person to start something good.

SPEAKER_01 53:35

Coach, I've thought about this in the context of my own life. Uh, when I was a child, I had some really serious uh life-threatening medical problems. And were it not for some extraordinary physicians who showed up for me with both skill and genuine care, I would not be alive today, coach. And so I I cannot pay back those doctors. They're all along gone, but I can pay it forward. I think of that them a lot when I treat other patients. I think it has uh a lot to do with why I became a doctor. I certainly hope I've helped a few folks along the way, but there's no doubt in my mind that the privilege of being a doctor all these years and having the practice of medicine is an amazing medium for paying it forward and has made my life that much richer and more meaningful.

SPEAKER_03 54:13

Yes. Dr. Mack, I agree that medicine is a wonderful medium for the expression of love and kindness. However, you don't have to be a medical professional to incorporate loving kindness into your life. And this heartwarming and world-changing practice is available to everybody all the time, no matter what your walk of life is. We've quoted Mother Teresa a couple of times. I'm gonna quote her one more time here. She said, if you want to change the world, go home and love your family. And we can expand that to the family of humanity, in which each person, each moment, each interaction, each act of loving-kindness makes a difference.

Closing Pearl And Ways To Help

SPEAKER_01 54:52

Well, coach, I think we've uh addressed this issue, so that'll about do it for this edition of the Wellness Connection MD podcast. And thank you so much for listening. I hope we were able to share something with you that informed you and inspired you.

SPEAKER_03 55:04

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SPEAKER_01 55:24

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SPEAKER_03 55:46

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SPEAKER_01 55:59

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SPEAKER_03 56:09

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SPEAKER_01 56:23

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SPEAKER_03 56:32

If you would like to reach out to us to comment on the show or to make recommendations for future topics, then you may do so at drmcmin at yahoo.com. And if you'd like to view a complete transcript of the show, then go over to McMinnMD.buzzsprout.com and you can find the transcript there.

SPEAKER_01 56:54

And now, Coach, can you please leave us one of your wonderful coach Lindsay Pearls of Wisdom?

SPEAKER_03 56:59

Thanks, Dr. Mac. Listeners never underestimate the healing power of loving kindness. A treatment plan may address the illness, but compassion speaks to the person. And in a world like we discussed, where AI is rising, loving kindness may be one of the most powerful things we still have to offer. It costs nothing, typically only takes a moment, and yet it can lower fear, restore connection, and bring healing in ways medicine alone sometimes cannot.

SPEAKER_01 57:28

Oh, that's wonderful, Coach. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. And uh that should do it. And until next time, stay curious, stay informed, keep it real. And remember, small actions can lead to big changes. So take that first step towards better health.

SPEAKER_03 57:41

This is Coach Lindsey signing out.

SPEAKER_01 57:44

And this is Dr. McNeil. Take care and be well.