The World is Revolving Yet…

Kavya Rao, MS3 at UCSD SOM

 

“The world is revolving yet.” 

 

This was a quote from DH, an 87 year old man with Alzheimer’s, in response to my request of him to write down any complete sentence as part of his MMSE. He wrote this down with trembling hands while I was busy feeling sorry for him as well as his prognosis. 

 

After I had read the paper, I stared at him incredulously. He winked and grinned at me, as if we were sharing some delicious joke, some big secret about life. It became clear to me that brave, beautiful, funny DH was – at least for now – still very much alive.

 

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The Balance

Anonymous

…between compassion and professionalism.

“Don’t answer questions about your personal life…Never give out your contact information…Don’t cry in front of a patient…Don’t let it get to you when a patient dies…”

My colleagues might call me soft, or unprofessional, or “too nice.”

Do I really care if I’m “too nice” to a patient? No.

But everyone else does.

I’ll tip the scale.