KINDNESS IN HEALTHCARE
AOK Maine is interested in supporting healthcare practitioners in the Portland region with a monthly “Kindness Clinic” to problem-solve dealing with difficult situations, individuals, and systems, using kindness as the framework. If you’d like to know when these will be happening, please let us know at aokmaine@gmail.com. These clinics will be facilitated by Jeff Edelstein, Executive Director of AOK Maine, who is also a professional mediator with extensive experience with conflict situations.
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Presentation at Maine Health, June 3, 2025. ​
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Promoting Compassion in Israeli Healthcare: "I Wanted You to Know"
“I Wanted You to Know,” uses a compassionate intake process at hospital admission, allowing a nurse to engage in a 10-minute conversation that highlights meaningful aspects of the patient’s life. A summary, including a photo from a significant moment, is displayed by the patient’s bed, fostering personal connections. “I Wanted You to Know,” was Elected as top #1 in the “Leading Health Initiative of The Year Contest”. Learn more here and here.
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Better Patient Care Calls for a ‘Platinum Rule’ to Replace the Golden One
A new principle in medicine focuses on understanding patients’ values, not assuming they share your own
Easy to Say, Important to Do: The Platinum Rule for Person-Centered Care
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Bringing Kindness to Medicine: Stories from the Prairie (2013, Jerome W. Freeman, MD)
Dr. Freeman's memoir is a story of grace that transcends the field of medicine. He shows us that he has faltered in his efforts to be kind, as surely as we have all faltered. But he also shows us that kindness is redemptive and so transforms even the most troubling of situations.
The 2025 Compassion Report, released by The Muhammad Ali Center, emphasizes the critical need for compassion in America, especially in light of rising polarization and division within communities. The report commemorates Muhammad Ali’s legacy as a champion of compassion, urging individuals to actively participate in fostering kindness and understanding, emphasizing that compassion is not merely a sentiment but a vital skill that can be cultivated to bridge divides.
A Pedagogy of Kindness (2024) articulates a fresh vision for teaching, one that focuses on ensuring justice, believing people, and believing in people. Offering evidence-based insights and drawing from her own rich experiences as a professor, Denial offers practical tips for reshaping syllabi, assessing student performance, and creating trust and belonging in the classroom. Her suggestions for concrete, scalable actions outline nothing less than a transformational discipline—one in which, together, we create bright new spaces, rooted in compassion, in which all engaged in teaching and learning might thrive.