Empathy in medicine

There has been a constant theme running through my life for the past decade. It has crossed through my dental hygiene career, into my reflexology career and on into my coaching career. It seems I am being pushed to speak about medical empathy. I am an empathetic hygienist/reflexologist/teacher/life coach and have a happy clientele to prove it. They are so thrilled to finally have someone who listens to them. I am not performing miracles for reflexology clients who come to see me and say I am their last hope. I am listening and at times I am finding habits that lead to their physical problems. Many times my clients have been told that their situation is hopeless, not necessarily fatal but it will not improve. This can become a self fulfilling prophecy for some people. Others look for people to give them hope and that is how they come to me. I listen and I tell them one simple thing. Nobody knows your body like you do and you do have some say in what your body can do. Many of them burst into tears when I say this. I do believe the body can do wonders if the mind is in a positive state.
The complaints about health care are coming to me fast and furious these days and I feel driven to comment. The few sites I have read regarding medical empathy are trying to quantify it in beakers and lab experiments. We are trained in empathy from infancy. At some point these medical practitioners choose to stop using it. Why, who knows? Bring it back. Your clients need it and you do to. Some day you will be a patient too.