For the past week I’ve been working on palliative care at the regional cancer centre. What I’ve liked most is taking time to talk to patients abt their illness and its impact on their lives. This was the kind of care I wanted to give when I applied to med school.

The other day I chatted with a patient about spoon theory. On other days we talk abt pain and guilt some ppl experience around breakthrough opioid doses. Validating what people are going through goes so, so far. It struck me how little we usually validate suffering in med.

I never learned validation techniques in med school. Those only came through in psychiatry training, where it’s become almost reflexive (especially after a few psych ED rotations). In medical school we learn instead about empathy, and “I’m sorry to hear that”.

But I see the immediate emotional and physical release when we tell people we *see* their suffering in that moment and in their life courses and that it’s such an understandable reaction to what they’re going through.

Anyway, all this to say that I think we should teach validation as a communication technique in medical school, to all students. This should not be a psychiatry-specific skillset. This is just good care, period.