To be compassionate is, if we take the word to bits, to suffer with another, to feel their suffering almost as if it is our own. So someone can work hard to relieve suffering, and be highly skilled in doing so, without thereby exhibiting compassion - they could simply be doing their job and enjoying its challenges. They show compassion only if their efforts to relieve suffering arise from and express a fellow feeling and sympathy. Now, we all want to be looked after by skilled professionals, but we would also like to be treated not only with professionalism, but compassion too because another's sympathy does something to comfort and console me, even when, or perhaps especially when, there is nothing left for professionalism to do.
n. 同情,怜悯