If compassion is so good for us, why don’t we train our health care providers in compassion so that they can do what they’re supposed to do, which is to transform suffering?

Halifax frames compassion not as a vague virtue but as a practical, trainable competency with measurable effects on both caregivers and patients. The quote challenges the assumption that clinical expertise alone fulfills medicine’s purpose; instead, it argues that health care should actively “transform suffering,” meaning to meet pain, fear, and vulnerability with skillful presence, ethical attention, and humane relationship. Implicitly, she critiques systems that reward speed, detachment, and burnout, suggesting that without compassion training, providers may inadvertently amplify suffering. The rhetorical question presses for institutional responsibility: if compassion benefits well-being and outcomes, medical education should cultivate it deliberately, like any other core clinical skill.