Can you remember your first year of clinical practice? Do you remember your first doctors visit as an adult? Or your most healing? Do you remember how another's pulse feels under your fingers?

http://www.ted.com Modern medicine is in danger of losing a powerful, old-fashioned tool: human touch. Physician and writer Abraham Verghese describes our strange new world where patients are merely data points, and calls for a return to the traditional one-on-one physical exam.

Click here to see Abraham Verghese (author of Cutting for Stone) on you tube with 'A doctor's touch'

Gently cupping her foot in my left hand I remember my patient giving birth the morning before. Her discomfort so intense. She had placed her fear into a holding pattern as I introduced myself. I had touched her foot in the stirrups instead of shaking hands, her husband occupying the space closest to her face and arms. Now returning to this movement, baby lying at her breast, occupying her hands, I smile. She wiggles her toes in welcome. My feeling of privilege visceral. Observing her movements I remember to feel exactly the weight of that foot.

Because she welcomes me and my gentle science.

Hello, World!