“Let me tell you the story of the frantic father and his 2-year-old daughter who was gasping for breath in the middle of the night. The father feared the worst as he rushed with his daughter to The Children’s emergency room.”
It was easy to see why Jonathan Browser was chosen by the 39 graduates of the Child Health Associate / Physician Assistant program to speak at their University of Colorado Denver convocation last week. Young, witty, and a good storyteller, he no doubt was their favorite professor.
“Even though the father was himself a clinician, he could not suppress the dread as he saw his girl struggling.” The graduates smiled through tears. They knew this story.
“Don’t worry, this has a happy ending,” he said. “Some inhaled steroids and she was sent home the next morning, diagnosed with the croup. If you haven’t guessed already, I was the frantic father of the croupy kid.
“The nurse that night at Children’s did not treat me as just another frantic dad. She was soothing and reassuring, even though she didn’t know the whole story. She didn’t know that my son, my daughter’s twin, had recently died of a sudden illness and that I was reliving that horror once again.
“I tell you this story today, on your graduation, to remind you that the care you give is given in a context – a context you may not know. Try as we might, we cannot possibly know everyone’s context, but we cannot let that stop us from caring as if we did.
“Every patient has a story. It is rich and meaningful even if you don’t know it. Strip away all the technology and what you are left with, fundamentally, is you, your patient, and their story.”
One Comment
Great story – I do a lot of work in the health-care sector, and that’s one of the central pieces of my effort: to have every part of the medical care system recognize their humanity, and the humanity of their patients.