But some experts have been singing its praises for longer. Kindness,they say,has bigger work to do than merely being celebrated in Hallmark cards every Mother’s Day:its place is in scrubs inside the wards and staff rooms of hospitals and aged-care homes,where harried healthcare workers daily navigate the fraught frontier between process (treatment) and practice (the humans who administer it).
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Kindness’ place is in scrubs inside the wards and staff rooms of hospitals and aged-care homes.Getty Images
In a landmark 1994 paper,“”,Harvard doctor Lucian Leape detailed how a physician’s need to be infallible could create an atmosphere of intellectual dishonesty in which underlings were routinely belittled,sometimes for asking a simple but crucial question. Sixty-four per cent of cardiac arrests at one teaching hospital were found to be preventable,he said,the result,in most cases,of mistaken medication dosage. How doctors and nurses react with each other could have a startling effect on patient safety.
Deakin University’s Professor Catherine Crock is a leading thinker in patient-centred care.,which she established in 2000,has been steadily transforming healthcare environments around the country using the arts – specially commissioned music and plays,for instance – and kindness. When properly embedded,she argues,kindness causes everyone’s cognitive bandwidth to miraculously expand,leading to fewer mental malfunctions – and fewer mistakes.
This month,Crock is hosting an online calendar of events,a “”,designed to help healthcare teams reimagine scenarios and reinvigorate connection. It includes talks from 14 experts in the field,including The Kindness Revolution’s Hugh Mackay.
“It’s as simple as checking in with colleagues. Asking them how they are and really listening to their answers.”
“It’s as simple as checking in with colleagues,” she says. “Asking them how they are and really listening to their answers. Or at the start of a briefing,I might ask,‘Is anyone experiencing anything that might affect their ability to do their job today?’ Kindness is all about making space for vulnerability.”
But what can the rest of us,who aren’t healthcare workers,do? Well,in the run-up to World Kindness Day (today),Sydney Community Foundation has launched its inaugural annual,which aims to raise $1 million in COVID relief for charities operating in Sydney’s hardest-hit west.
“We’re inviting every Sydneysider to give as little or as much as they can,” says the foundation’s CEO,Jane Jose. “We hope it will be a positive day as the community steps out of lockdown and faces life in the continuing pandemic.”
Charlotte Cody,one of Auggie’s besties at Beecher Prep,would approve. “It’s not enough to be friendly,” she tells him. “You have to be a friend.”
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