Extrapolate

Although inducing a false sense of feeling what the others feel is a real problem, I must say I do not consider it an important one. To say the least, it is not what I meant by illusion.

My concern is simple: Even if one could have exactly the same feeling with our patients by sharing the same kind of life experience, there are so many different types of life experience that you cannot (and you certainly don’t want to) try each and every one of them.

“But, if we have the life experience of how it feels with one type of disease, we shall better appreciate the suffering of other patients with different problems.” You may argue.

Alas! Do you mean you could extrapolate your own feeling with one type of disease to others with entirely different conditions? (For example, in the student project that I mentioned yesterday, do you think staying in a wheelchair for a week would help you understand the difficulty faced by a blind person?)

“Oh, you are picking bones from an egg. I think if we have the experience of taking the role of a patient, we shall be more humble and will try to put more effort to address their concern.” I believe you would protest.

Well, in that case (which I fully agree), you don’t really need another round of experience and fall sick again – I’m sure you should have sufficient experience after living to this age (unless, of course, you did not learn any lesson from your past).

That’s what I meant by illusion.