What’s a treasured memento from a patient, and what does is remind you about caregiving?

Justin McArthur, MBBS, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Over the years I have been honored to receive a number of pieces of art that patients have painted themselves, and given to me as a gift.

I display them proudly in my office, and they remind me of my lasting connections with patients, sometimes over many years. These paintings are some of my proudest possessions.

Erin Snyder, MD, University of Alabama

A patient once wrote me a poem about how she felt as she tapered off her antidepressant (clearer, brighter). I keep it as a reminder that even once necessary treatments should be revisited regularly.

@RUBraveEnough

One Christmas Eve, I received a phone call from a person I had resuscitated. It made me stay in Medicine when I was contemplating quitting. I will never forget it.

Shannon Scott-Vernaglia, MD, MassGeneral

A patient drew a self-portrait of himself that is an absolute likeness. I keep it framed by my desk. He has aged out of my practice, but I look at his face every day and it reminds me what a gift it is to be invited into patients’ lives.

Paul O'Rourke, MD, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

As an intern, I cared for a man with a new diagnosis of AML on the oncology service. I felt so much for him and his family and spent a lot of time with them. Beyond the cancer conversations, he told me about his life – I loved those talks getting to know him better and seeing him light up as he talked about the person he was beyond this new terrible diagnosis.

Weeks after he was discharged from the hospital and I was on another service, I was contacted by the Oncology administrative offices – he had mailed me a model train of the company he worked for. He had told me all about these trains and it was such a touching gift to have this memento of our conversations together. The model train always reminds me of the importance of knowing our patients for the people they are beyond the hospital or clinic walls.

Martin Winkler, MD, Montreal, Canada

A patient who was a writer gave me the memoir he had written after the death of his father, who had given him a kidney while alive. It is the first book written by a patient I was ever given. A book about care and family and love. 35 years later, I still cherish it.

Jennifer Goetz, MD, MassGeneral

A patient gave me a pendant she made with the word “hope” on it. She couldn’t hold hope and needed me to. It hangs in my office and reminds me that we walk alongside patients in their journey.

Kim Stokes, MHS, PA-C, East Carolina University

On a medical mission trip in Honduras, I was given a blessing by a patient, “May your hands be always in His service.” Humbling.

Jessica Colburn, MD, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

After one of my patients tragically lost her son, she came to see me every two weeks for several months. She would come at the end of my clinic session, and we would talk about her son and her grief. We rarely talked about her blood pressure, her diabetes, or her cholesterol, though I worried those issues were not well controlled. After a few months, she felt ready to stretch out the visits. One day, she showed up in clinic with backpacks she had purchased for my children. “You really listened to me, and I wanted to say thank you.” It was a gift from one mother to another. My children use those backpacks whenever they have a sleepover or a weekend trip, and I think of her every time. Her gift was a powerful reminder to me about taking the time to slow down, to listen, and to allow myself to share life’s joys and sorrows with my patients. It also reminds me how fortunate we are that our patients trust us with their stories.

Mike Fingerhood, MD, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

I take care of a wonderful couple, he from Honduras and she from El Salvador,  who spoke very limited English when I first met them over a decade ago. Their oldest son is now my patient as well. A wood carving the father made for me sits above my desk.

Panagis Galiatsatos, MD, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

While in the oncology ICU, one of my young patients decided to transition to focusing on comfort and quality. Before the relapse of his leukemia, he had one month left of training to become a secret service agent. The Secret Service Agency allowed him to be inducted into the agency at his bedside before we removed his endotracheal tube. At the end of the ceremony, his father gave me a secret service agent hat that I now keep in my office. It reminds me of the conversation the patient I had the night before he made the decision, reminding me that our patients are always the bravest persons we come across.

Colleen Christmas, MD, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

I used to care for an older woman who, ahem, was harder to love than most. When I’d see her name on my schedule, or see she’d called with a question, I had to take a few deep breaths before engaging her. She seemed never to be happy with my advice, to argue with any explanation I tried to offer, and I honestly just didn’t think she and I got along. One occasion I kept her waiting quite a while and entered the room apologetically. She told me she used the time to write me a letter but that I couldn’t read it until after the visit. We finished our standard back and forth visit. That evening I was spent but braced myself for her letter, which was lovely! She told me she never minded waiting for me because I always answered all of her questions and that she thinks I cared for her more than her own family. It struck me that even when she was very ill her family seemed not to be available to her and perhaps they found her harder to love than most too.

I treasure that letter. It reminds me of the deep humility we must bring to our jobs, that sometimes just being willing to stick it out on the journey with our patients can be deeply valuable, especially when that journey is bumpy, and that each person is a mystery unto himself. I’ve reread her letter probably 50 times over the years since she died, whenever I need this reminder. Ah, we are infinitely lucky to do this work.

Scott Wright, MD, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

The way to my heart is through my stomach. I love good food. Over the years, my patients have brought in so many wonderful treats from their gardens and ovens. Many of the delicacies were staples from their culture that they wanted me to experience and enjoy. While these treasured mementos never last long in my hands and mouth, I think of these kind and giving patients whenever I re-encounter these foods again in stores and restaurants. My patients’ thoughtfulness, generosity, and desire to expand my horizons reminds me that I need to do the same for all of them through my caring.

Randy Barker, MD, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

In the early 80s, I worked with a couple, Barry and Ellen. In their individual visits, each blamed all of their miseries on the other. Both were serious abusers of alcohol but functional. Despite my savvy about motivating patients to get into recovery, no luck.

I said I’d like to spend time with both of them together in the room with me, unsure of where we would go. Where we went was into buckets of tears from both – I hardly said anything. I just let things go and in a little while they had begun looking from me to one another, and lamenting how they had never been able to conceive a baby, and that this never got away from them when they came home and looked around their childless world.

Over the rest of the time I knew them, they seemed  better for having born their souls this way. This experience reminded me that getting more than one person together around vexing “medical” dilemmas can yield much.