I recently spent some time in the waiting room of a hospital, while my husband was having surgery. As I sat there, I was patting myself on the back for being organized for this little jaunt. I had remembered a wheeled suitcase in which to store hubby’s belongings while he was in the OR, I’d packed some nibbles for myself so I wouldn’t have to go down to the cafeteria if I didn’t want to, and I’d made sure I had my my phone with me.

Then I suddenly realized that what I hadn’t thought to bring was a phone

While I was driving to work on a sunny Friday morning many years ago, the opening music for the StoryCorps broadcast streamed from the radio. I raised the volume and listened. A daughter asked her father how he’d made it out of a psychiatric hospital where he received shock treatments. He had been committed for insanity at age 22. He replied simply that he watched television to see how “normal” people acted and mimicked what he saw. Eventually, the staff released him.

The interview ended. I lowered the volume on the radio and reflected on this man’s smarts and the

I was in the process of leaving my first practice after residency, after three years at a rural community health center in western New York.

Saying goodbye to patients is emotional and takes extra time. Most patients expressed gratitude. Some brought small tangible gifts.

It’s time for our last psychiatric patient of the day in rural Florida. It’s 4:00 p.m., and by now the cows have been fed and the crops have been harvested.

Suddenly, there was a heavy tapping at the door and a swift shuffling of feet. A loud voice erupted, “Doc, I gotta talk to you!”

I learned it takes a sense of humor to survive a hospital stay. Lined up on gurneys, flat on our backs, the three of us wait to be put through our paces on some testing machine or other. Riffing off each other, I say aloud that I feel as if I’m in a used car lot. A second person says they want our parts. The third says, “Parts, I ain’t got no parts.”