Mom: Your grandfather goes in on Monday. I sent you his card.
| CITY HOSPITAL · Patient Card |
|---|
| Building B, Floor 3, Room 12 |
| Doctor Chen · Monday 10:30 |
| Do not eat after midnight Sunday |
| Bring this card and a family member |
| Light food only after: rice, lettuce, soup |
Ken: I can take him. My class ends at nine, so I will be there by ten.
Mom: Good. Remember he cannot eat breakfast, so do not stop for brunch on the way.
Ken: Right. Should I bring anything else?
Mom: Just the card. He has everything else in his bag already.
Please read this before you see the doctor.
You may bring one family member into the room. If you would rather speak alone, tell the nurse at the desk, and she will ask the other person to wait outside. Nobody will ask you why.
If you cannot come, please call before nine in the morning so that another patient can take your time. A missed hour is an hour nobody can use, and the doctor's office already has a long list.
Dear Nurse Lin,
You will not remember me. I was the boy with the cut hand in Room 12 last August, the one who would not let anybody near him.
You did not tell me to be brave. You sat down, showed me the small silver tool, and said it would hurt for about six seconds. Then you counted them out loud with me. It was the first time in that hospital that somebody told me the truth about how bad it would be.
I am studying now to work in a hospital myself, and I look forward to it every day. I wanted you to know that a person can decide what to do with his life because of six seconds that somebody counted for him.
Thank you. Chang Wei
For a long time, a doctor was trained to ask one question: what is wrong with you? It is a good question, and it finds a broken bone quickly.
Some schools now teach a second one: what has happened to you? The first question looks for a part of the body. The second looks for a life. A sick child who cannot sleep may not need a drug; he may need a quiet house. Every human being carries more than one story.
This change is slow, because the second question takes longer and cannot be measured well. But doctors who ask it say something simple: people get better faster when somebody has heard the whole story, not only the part that shows on the skin.