Comment by pigpop

Empathy is a highly variable trait in humans, both from one person to the next as well as within the same person depending on their mental state and the people and situation they are dealing with, so I'd bet that most of the time you're not going to get genuine empathy from people either. They may say empathetic sounding things but I doubt there will be any actual feeling behind it. I'm not even sure doctors could function in their jobs if they weren't able to distance themselves from deeply empathizing with their patients, it would just be one heart wracking tragedy after another if you fully immersed yourself in how each patient was feeling when they're at their worst.