Professional empathy in health care is a feeling with, about, and for the patient that opens up a world to be explored by way of imagination and dialogue. The concern is professional in nature because it deals with the patient precisely as a person the health care professional has the duty to aid in respect of her education and position. The biomedical paradigm needs to be balanced and combined in the clinical encounter with an empathic perspective, focusing upon the experiences and everyday life of the patient, since the doctor and other health care professionals meet not only with a potentially diseased biological organism, but also with a person who is suffering and in need of professional help.