ArticleJournal of palliative medicine2009
Compassionate silence in the patient-clinician encounter: a contemplative approach.
Article in Journal of palliative medicine, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 112 citations in OpenAlex.
- Improving Clinical Competence Through Simulated Training in Evidence-Based Practice for Stuttering: A Pilot Study.American journal of speech-language pathology · 2022Trial
- Relational care in palliative care units: a qualitative study of low-threshold volunteer hospice conversations.BMC health services research · 2026Article
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- Integrating Therapeutic Silence in Serious Illness Communication #509.Journal of palliative medicine · 2025Article
- Building dignity at the bedside: A reflective clinical model for clinical encounters.Palliative & supportive care · 2025Article
- Article
- SAFE-GOALS: a protocol for goals of care discussions in the intensive care unit.Trauma surgery & acute care open · 2025Review
- Communicating difficult news in pediatric radiology.Pediatric radiology · 2024Review
- "Am I Going to Die?": Delivering Serious News to Patients With Liver Disease.Gastroenterology · 2023Article
- The Art of Saying Nothing.Pediatrics · 2022Article
- Silence in Conversations About Advancing Pediatric Cancer.Frontiers in oncology · 2022Article
- Compassionate community structure and function: a standardised micro-model for end-of-life doulas and community members supporting those who wish to die at home.Palliative care and social practice · 2021Article
- Technical Challenges for Smooth Interaction With Seniors With Dementia: Lessons From Humanitude™.Frontiers in robotics and AI · 2021Review
- Finding common ground: meta-synthesis of communication frameworks found in patient communication, supervision and simulation literature.BMC medical education · 2020Article
- Article
- Emotions in the room: common emotional reactions to discussions of poor prognosis and tools to address them.Expert review of anticancer therapy · 2019Review
- Reading the Room: Lessons on Holding Space and Presence.Journal of cancer education : the official journal of the American Association for Cancer Education · 2018Article
- 'Compassion, the first emotion ditched when I'm busy'. The struggle to maintain our common humanity.MedEdPublish (2016) · 2018Article
- Eloquent silences: A musical and lexical analysis of conversation between oncologists and their patients.Patient education and counseling · 2016Article
- Prioritizing Clinician Wellbeing: The University of Virginia's Compassionate Care Initiative.Global advances in health and medicine · 2015Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
In trying to improve clinician communication skills, we have often heard clinicians at every level admonished to "use silence," as if refraining from talking will improve dialogue. Yet we have also noticed that this "just do it," behavior-focused "use" of silence creates a new, different problem: the clinician looks uncomfortable using silence, and worse, generates a palpable atmosphere of unease that feels burdensome to both the patient and clinician. We think that clinicians are largely responsible for the effect of silence in a clinical encounter, and in this article we discuss what makes silence enriching--enabling a kind of communication between clinician and patient that fosters healing. We describe a typology of silences, and describe a type of compassionate silence, derived from contemplative practice, along with the mental qualities that make this type of silence possible.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.