Empathy. Useful or not?

I had a very interesting and challenging conversation with a medical practitioner recently.

They held that the secret to good patient communication was empathy. They felt that without empathy you could not really help the patient.I took the exact opposite view on empathy. I feel that empathy is at best useless and often harmful.

Empathy is defined as "the ability to understand and share the feelings of another".

Here's why I take a dim view of it.

1. Patients are often full of fear and neuroses
   Why would I want to share fear and neuroses? An ideal dentist should look kind and understanding on the outside while remaining like teflon on the inside.

2. Your job is to fix problems
   Problems are best solved if you remain detached and objective. The moment you become emotionally involved your judgment is clouded.

3. Empathy wastes time
   Certainly you have to listen to and hear people but empathy often leads to prolonged wallowing in problems.

Where do you stand on empathy?

My recommendation is to be kind and considerate but keep internal detachment and impartiality.