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SUFFERING AND PAIN AS THE SOURCES OF EMPATHY AND EMOTIONAL BURNOUT (PART 1)

DOI: 10.46573/2409-1391-2025-3-5-11

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Authors

E.A. Evstifeeva

Abstract

The article introduces the problem of human and professional health, emotional burnout and deprivation of empathy among medical professionals, doctors in the focus of the phenomenon of suffering. The challenges of our time, the introduction of digital AI technologies and robotics into the workforce, covidopandemia, the constant transformation of the Russian healthcare system, and the shortage of medical personnel in most regions of Russia required maximum mobilization of professional, subject, and personal resources of medical workers. However, it is obvious, as demonstrated by valid sociological surveys and psychological research in 2024–2025, there is a shortage of professional health of medical workers, emotional burnout has been registered, which leads to a deprivation of empathy as a subjective and personal quality of a doctor, and a loss of patient trust. It is argued that the existential source of empathy is suffering and compassion for another, which are labeled in various ways and have a philosophical explanation.

Keywords

suffering, pain, empathy, emotional burnout, doctor-patient relationship