Healing with Heart from Moss Communications

The Power of Touch

Healing with Heart: Inspirations for Health Care Professionals is a compilation of real-world stories that illustrate the importance of our work as healers. Healing with Heart, the latest book published by Moss Communications, reminds health care professionals of many ideas and concepts that we already know, including the power of healing that comes from a simple touch.

This reflection, The Power of Touch, uses a story to show how a gentle touch made the difference in one patient’s life, and in the nurses’ lives, too. All of us know that when we touch someone, we are creating a human connection that reminds us of why we went into health care as a profession. It also benefits our patients and instantly improves the quality of care we give our patients.

Here’s an excerpt from The Power of Touch, from Healing with Heart:

Most patients appreciate the medical care they receive. We can enhance their healing in small but meaningful ways during this stressful time in their lives. Here’s a story showing how two nurses made that happen.

A nurse-supervisor was making her rounds when a patient stopped her in the hallway. He told her that he had recently undergone a procedure to contain a serious cancer. The operating room had been cold and sterile and the table was hard. As he lay there, he was afraid and anxious. Then, one of the nurses who was readying him for treatment touched his arm. Another nurse stroked his hair while positioning him on the table. That simple human touch put him at ease, gave him great comfort, and was enormously reassuring. There was something very special about it. Maybe it reminded him of his mother’s intimate, tender touch when he was a child. Maybe it was a kind gesture that communicated human warmth and connection, something many of us simply don’t experience very often. For whatever reason, the nurses’ touch was terribly important.

It is possible to be technically proficient and have great clinical outcomes and yet fail to heal the patient…