Most doctors believe they are good communicators. Most of them are right. But there is a difference between compassion, doing everything in your power to help someone, and empathy, letting them know for one moment that you genuinely understand what they are going through.
Dr. Chantal Lorio spent seven years as medical director of patient experience at Ochsner Health, has observed hundreds of clinical encounters firsthand, and has coached physicians on the specific connection between how they communicate with...
Most doctors believe they are good communicators. Most of them are right. But there is a difference between compassion, doing everything in your power to help someone, and empathy, letting them know for one moment that you genuinely understand what they are going through.
Dr. Chantal Lorio spent seven years as medical director of patient experience at Ochsner Health, has observed hundreds of clinical encounters firsthand, and has coached physicians on the specific connection between how they communicate with patients and how they feel at the end of the day.
In this episode, she makes a case that most doctors find counterintuitive: a five-second moment of empathy does not add time to a consultation. Done right, it actually shortens it.
Timestamped Highlights
[03:00]: Dr. Lorio describes the moment she first saw her own patient survey data and what she noticed that convinced her better communication was not about being nicer. It was about outcomes.
[11:00]: She introduces the concept of the bubble, the one thing a patient keeps repeating until someone acknowledges it, and explains exactly what it costs when a doctor tries to redirect past it instead.
[13:00]: A neighbor versus a doctor. Dr. Lorio uses a simple example to demonstrate the difference between compassion and empathy, and why patients can feel the difference even when both are present.
[20:00]: The retreat exercise that revealed to her how she was showing up at home versus at work, and why showing up in body is not the same as being present.
[27:00]: She describes pajama time, the data healthcare systems can now access showing which doctors are charting at 3AM, and what she believes organizations should do with that information rather than ignore it.
[33:00]: What Ochsner invested a million dollars in that had nothing to do with training or wellness programs, and why it saved doctors more time than almost anything else.
Three Key Takeaways
1. Empathy and compassion are not the same thing, and patients know the difference.
Dr. Lorio draws a distinction that most medical training never makes explicit. Compassion is wanting to help and acting on it. Empathy is stepping into someone's shoes for a moment and letting them know you did. Doctors are typically excellent at compassion. They ask the right questions, order the right tests, and do everything clinically necessary. But when a patient feels like the doctor did not quite get them, it is usually because the empathy moment was skipped. That moment, she argues, does not require extra time. It requires a single sentence, delivered once, at the right moment.
2. Acknowledging the bubble is faster than working around it.
Every consultation has one. A patient says something unrelated to the chief complaint, and keeps saying it, slightly louder and with more detail each time, until someone acknowledges it. Dr. Lorio calls it the bubble. The doctor who tries to redirect past it will spend more time on the visit than the doctor who pauses for five seconds and says you must be exhausted or things must be really tough right now. The acknowledgment puts it to rest. The patient feels heard. The conversation moves forward. What sounds like an extra step is actually a shortcut, and she has watched it play out in hundreds of observed encounters.
3. Sense of control is the most common thing doctors come to coaching for.
Dr. Lorio has worked with doctors across private practice and large health systems, and the theme that comes up most consistently is not workload or communication. It is a feeling of having no control over the clinic, the career, or life at home. She coaches around all three areas, helping doctors identify where they actually do have agency, exploring career possibilities beyond the current role even if they never act on them, and working on presence at home rather than just hours spent there. The shift from I am stuck to I have options, she says, is often the single most powerful thing coaching produces.
Guest Bio
Dr. Chantal Lorio is a podiatric surgeon, executive coach, and patient experience consultant based in New Orleans. After 16 years in private practice and 12 years as department chair at Ochsner Health, she served as medical director of patient experience for seven years before moving into independent coaching and consulting. She works with doctors and healthcare organizations on the connection between patient communication, physician wellbeing, and clinical outcomes, and is the author of I Get You, I Got You, available on Amazon. Explore her website here.
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