Maintaining compassion and preventing compassion fatigue: a practical guide.

Compassion is innate in us as human beings. Compassion can be defined as a deep awareness of the suffering of another individual, coupled with the wish to relieve it. It has been increasingly topical, recently, in situations where an apparent breathtaking absence of compassion has allowed great harm to come to patients. So, how do we sustain compassion and prevent this loss? Central to our ability to maintain compassion is how we look after ourselves and those in our teams.