Eye to Eye--December 2011

Photo by John Carroll--December 2011

Walk rounds have always been more business than story, with occasional memorable moments that happen almost by accident. And those moments are almost all born of a conversation with a patient, a glimpse of humanity, a revelation of what William Carlos Williams called a “secret underground stream” of private thoughts, feelings, hopes, and fears, or an unexpectedly intimate encounter like that described by Naomi Shihab Nye in her poem “Eye to Eye”:

“We will be wearing our famous street faces,/anonymous as trees./Suddenly you will see me,/you will blink, hesitant,/then realize I have not looked away./For one brave second/we will stare/openly/from borderless skins.”

Sitting down at the bedside helps us to not look away. It not only makes us better at teaching, giving feedback, and caring for our patients — it creates space for these moments and allows us to find meaning in our days.

New England Journal of Medicine
1 December, 2011

John A. Carroll, MD
www.haitianhearts.org