Doctors do not care:
Physicians apparently learn to “shut off” the portion of their brain that helps them appreciate the pain their patients experience while treating them and instead activate a portion of the brain connected with controlling emotions, according to new research using brain scans at the University of Chicago.
The explanations uncover additional insight too:
“It would not be adaptive if this automatic sharing mechanism for pain was not modulated by cognitive control.
“Think, for instance, of the situations that surgeons, dentists, and nurses face in their everyday professional practices. Without some regulatory mechanism, it is very likely that medical practitioners would experience personal distress and anxiety that would interfere with their ability to heal.”
[story]