Ode to a coffee mug 

By Avani Kulkarni, MD, Johns Hopkins Observership Program, with Carolina Musri, MD, Johns Hopkins Medicine 

If you asked me the secret to the resiliency of healthcare professionals, it’s not knowledge, or checklists, or even caffeine. It’s a mug. Not just the coffee or tea inside them—but the mugs themselves. Chipped, stained, oversized, or a gift from someone special. Forgotten during codes and rediscovered hours later, stone cold. These mugs are the quiet companions of the clinical world. 

Each one carries muscle memory—the early morning huddles, the night shifts, the moments between patients when we take a breath. A favorite blue mug came with me on my first rotation, when I was still learning to match symptoms with diagnoses and names with faces. The white one with the crack near the rim sat beside me during a PICU night shift, when I watched a child’s vitals fluctuate and a parent’s hope flicker, both steadied by presence. 

These mugs become more than vessels. They become witnesses. To the first time we break bad news. To the heaviness after a code doesn’t succeed. To the quiet joy of catching something early, and the relief when a patient turns the corner. They hold not just caffeine—but grief, pride, fear, and joy. 

Medicine teaches us to anticipate variation—heart rates, labs, outcomes. But the mug? It remains unchanged. Its familiar weight is a small reminder that even with the unpredictable, some things stay the same. And rituals can make a difference. Pour. Sip. Breathe. Sometimes, it’s all we have time for between patients. And that moment can anchor us.

Resilience is built quietly over countless refills, in the seconds when your hands wrap around something familiar. When you’ve had to deliver difficult news or help a family say goodbye, you don’t always have time to fully decompress. But you do get a moment in the hallway. A breath. A sip. A pause. 

My current favorite mug has a hairline crack and leaks slightly if you overfill it. But it still holds enough. Enough warmth. Enough routine. Enough comfort to get me through the next challenging conversation, the next shift, the next page. So yes, the mug leaks. But honestly, so do we sometimes. And still, somehow, we hold enough. 

Ultimately, these simple, unassuming mugs improve my patient care by providing a consistent, grounding ritual amid chaos, allowing me to recenter, process complex emotions, and return to my patients with renewed presence and empathy. 

Three things I’ve learned from coffee mugs: 

1. Find comfort somewhere in the chaos.

When work feels overwhelming, when the outcomes don’t match the effort, there’s always the simple, grounding ritual of pouring coffee into the same familiar mug. 

2. Resilience.

Mugs have been dropped, forgotten on the roofs of cars, abandoned during busy duty hours, and still survived. So have we. 

3. Celebrate.

Hot tea in your favorite mug after a long day is a tiny but mighty reward. Celebrate something small after the end of each day. 

This piece expresses the views solely of the author. It does not necessarily represent the views of any organization, including Johns Hopkins Medicine.