“Her gift had taught me everything important.”

 NEMG physician's essay one of top two for Patient Experience Week contest 

Twenty-five employees submitted essays for the health system's Patient Experience Week Essay Contest. Two winners were selected for their insightful, moving essays on the theme "The Power of Connection..." Perspectives is honored to feature the winning essays, starting with the one published here by Christopher Kolker, MD, Northeast Medical Group Internal Medicine.

Watch for our next issue when we will bring you the essay written by Maxine Monson, business associate, YNHH York Street Campus MICU.

Christopher Kolker, MD

An older lady, riddled with arthritis, debilitated with neuropathy, is wheeled by her daughter into the examination room. I follow her, expecting a familiar litany of complaints.

I dread it. Even after countless medicines, treatments, and surgeries, pain was her constant adversary. Breezing through the threshold with the best plastic smile I can muster, I said, “How are you?”

Still slumped in the chair, she meekly whispers, “Here.”

In her hand was a brilliantly colored painting of a majestic angel.

“I did this for you.”

Her daughter chimed in, “It took months.”

A flood of shame engulfs me, and then I reconstruct the pain, perseverance, and tremendous care  this painting must have taken. Her gift had taught me everything important. At that moment,  I knew I needed her grace and wisdom more than she ever needed me.