Often there is a gap in the evidence for compassionate learning compared to the research evidence for compassionate care and yet it is the learning that informs our practice not the other way around. If we are to understand compassionate learning better then we should be more familiar with the scholarly activity of practitioners that demonstrates their learning. This is not always true of researchers whose job it is to simply gather facts, putting those facts into practice is the job of the scholar.
In higher education we are well aware of the theory practice gap where, what we know to be good evidence based practice does not always happen. As professionals we must be constantly reflecting upon this dilemma and asking our selves why does it not happen?
Gathering information does not always guarantee that learning has taken place and is a common mistake many students and practitioners make. This is why learning theory has moved away from surface learning where facts are “crammed” into our heads to pass an exam for example. For the development of good scholarly practice throughout our professional lives, we must also be able to demonstrate through deep learning, how we have used the infromation gathered.
Compassion is a universal language suggests Booth (2016). By understanding the needs of the people we work with (Unversality) and working with individuals to adapt our knowledge (diversity) we can help people stay informed about their illness or problems and develop skills to help them cope better (recovery). In this way the practice of compassionate learning is very similar to scholarly activity where we find out about new ways of working, interpret our findings and demonstrate how we have put them into practice. Scholarly activity is a really good way to demonstrate compassionate care through compassionate learning and can be done simply by reflecting upon our practice, current opinion, policy and/ or research. This can be evidenced by blogging, reflecting, journaling, presenting at conferences and writing for publication. As a professional you may not be actually doing research in your everyday lives but you may be doing far more, by implementing research and changing and improving your practice, through compassionate learning.
