Martha lives with her boyfriend, Cameron, in a small one-bedroom apartment. After Martha’s hours were cut due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Cameron, who works in marketing for hospice care, agreed to take on more hours at his job to supplement his income. One day, while Cameron was working from home, Martha overheard him tell a prospective client's family that he was a doctor. Martha knows full well that Cameron is not a doctor at all, and she was surprised to hear him misrepresent himself in this way. Martha confronted Cameron after the call, and he said that he was just doing his job and getting a new patient to sign up for services. Martha feels conflicted. On one hand, she knows that Cameron is doing his best to be good at his job, and part of his job is to convince more people to sign up for hospice care. Cameron’s success at work is more important than ever because his hard work is making up for the pay cut she suffered earlier in the year. On the other hand, she can’t help but be seriously bothered by the fact that Cameron has pretended to be a doctor to get new patients.
The Pediatric Protector (*Sensitive)
Eliza is a retired former pediatrician who now works as a private language tutor. She often spends time bringing her grandchildren, ages eight and five, to their nearby playground. Her grandchildren recently struck up a friendship with a new six year old girl on the playground, who told them that her mother had “banged her up” at her home for playing on the stairs, so much so that she was in pain on the playground. After hearing about this from both her grandchildren, Eliza is not sure what to do. As a pediatrician, she was a mandated reporter, required to report any child abuse to the required authorities. But she also knows that children can exaggerate or make mistakes; perhaps the mother was trying to keep the child safe, or she had fallen on her own. Eliza is told by a child welfare hotline that it is her decision whether to report or not. Her pediatrician friends urge her to report, and she feels obligated to as a former doctor. But Eliza worries the child could end up in a foster home where she might not be cared for.
Hurtful Meme
Madeline is a nurse who works in the emergency room of a hospital. Upon her hiring, she discovered that Paul, one of her classmates from nursing school, also worked at the hospital and would be her co-worker. After working a few shifts together, the two connected on social media. One day, Madeline saw that Paul had “liked” a meme on social media that expressed anti-immigrant sentiment, decrying immigrants as a drain on resources, including healthcare. As soon as she saw the meme, Madeline felt uneasy. The hospital where Madeline and Paul worked served many in their city’s immigrant communities, and Madeline was herself the children of immigrant parents. The meme hit close to home for her. Additionally, Madeline considered herself friendly with Paul, and he was in a more senior position to her on the nursing staff.
The Diagnosis Dilemma (*Sensitive)
Thomas is a genome scientist and geneticist at a pharmaceutical company. He works on identifying gene targets for drug development. When Thomas was finishing up the last couple of months of his residency during medical school, he was asked by his favorite doctor, someone he viewed as a mentor, to assist with his private practice patients. One night soon after Thomas started this work, one of Thomas’s professors was brought into the hospital in the middle of the night in a deep coma after having attempted suicide. Fortunately, Thomas and his mentor were successful in saving the professor’s life. However, when Thomas’s mentor looked over the notes on the case, he said that Thomas had “missed the diagnosis,” and that the patient had been brought to the hospital due to “an acute asthmatic attack.” Thomas quickly realized that he was being asked to help cover up a suicide attempt. Although he followed his mentor’s directions and changed the diagnosis in the patient’s file, he did not feel at all comfortable about the situation.
A Believer in Bolivia (*Sensitive)
Patrick is a young medical resident who is “passionate” about his work. After his sister died of leukemia during his senior year in college, Patrick became a Christian in order “to find meaning in life,” and he now feels deep ties to Christianity. Patrick has long been concerned with issues of social injustice, and he sees becoming a doctor as his way of helping the poor. After completing his formal medical training, he wants to establish his own orphanage in Bolivia, where he has worked with children before. Patrick’s very strict moral and ethical standards for himself and his work are visible. He makes decisions according to his understandings of right and wrong, and understandings based on his Christian beliefs. Because of these beliefs, Patrick refers patients to his colleagues if there is an issue that is in conflict with his values. He does not care if he gets a “bad rap” or a “bad mark” as a resident.
Empathy: How Much Is Too Much?
Linda is a twenty-seven-year-old professional nurse at a respite unit at Boston’s Health Care for the Homeless. As a child and young adult, Linda faced many challenges within her family: her parents were divorced and her mother and sister were both mentally and emotionally unstable. By helping her mother and her sister, she learned to “reach out and help others.” Linda firmly believes that “pain brings empathy.” At the same time, Linda acknowledges that over-empathizing with people can be risky, because you can lose balance, or take on too much of a patient’s “sorrow and sadness.” Linda believes that it is important to have “balance” and “empathy” and “to know your limits” at the same time.
The Hardy Hedgehog
Eliza is an occupational therapist at a hospital as well as at a state-run mental health facility. As a medical practitioner, she feels responsible to patients’ physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. Eliza has been able to bridge her interest in nature, animals, and art with her medical knowledge and skills, and in the state mental health facility, she brings plants and animals to the patients. Eliza believes that when considering the human spirit, we should give “equal weight” to the body and mind. Connecting these beliefs with her formal training has become her personal and professional mission. She works with young students, many of whom are mentally unstable and some of whom are suicidal, and she brings the natural world and animals to these children in order to work on issues of safety, trust, and caring. One of Eliza’s patients, a young boy with a history of violence who also struggled with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), gained a sense of motivation and purpose through his encounter with a hedgehog that Eliza had brought into the center. The experience with the hedgehog turned out to be a major turning point for him.
A Life Worth Living
Dr. Bernard Lown is a cardiology professor and practicing cardiologist in his seventies who lives and works in the Boston area. Years ago, Lown had a patient who was an artist, a painter, who Lown felt needed an operation. The operation was extremely successful, and Lown considered the case resolved. However, when his patient came in for a follow-up appointment, it turned out that, as a result of his surgery, this man had lost the use of his right hand. He could no longer paint, and now “life wasn’t worth living.” Years later, Lown remembered the painter when he met with another patient who had been told by her other doctors that she needed a risky heart operation Lown asked her what she wanted to do with the rest of her life; she was a professor, and she quickly responded that she wanted to summarize her life’s work. He encouraged her to pursue her writing in the time she had left, and to avoid the operation. She lived six more years, and completed her writing in that time.