Passing through her neighbourhood, I decide to surprise a friend. Stepping into her general practice that is constantly in demand and always overbooked, I am surprised when the receptionist says the doctor has just stepped out.
Stepped out where? It’s mid-morning, the waiting room is packed and, as far as I know, she doesn’t do house calls. They can’t (or won’t) say.
I leave, a tad annoyed. Later, I am relieved I kept my mouth shut.
Shortly before me, a man had walked in. From their 20-year association, she knew him to be diabetic. He had caught the bus but neither the walk from the bus stop nor his blood sugar explained his elevated heart rate.
“Why is your heart rate so high?, she wonders while examining him.
“I haven’t eaten properly for two weeks,” he says.
She knows that he shares space with a boarder. It emerges that the boarder has fallen on hard times and can’t pay rent; consequently, the patient can’t afford groceries. Feeling increasingly weak, he is seeking a reason. But his doctor already knows the diagnosis: hunger.
So she says: “It’s almost time for my walk, come with me.”
Their first stop is the cafe. Noting the queue for service, she asks him to duck into the supermarket with her. He asks what she needs. Lozenges for my scratchy throat, she says.
Inside, she picks a basket and quietly hands it to him. Hunger trumps hesitation: soon he has collected milk, eggs and sausages; she casually replaces each with the family-size version.
In the vegetable section, they bicker like an old couple. She says buy lettuce, he scoffs. Some fruit at least, she coaxes. He concedes and picks up bananas.
At the checkout, he implores, “Let me get your lozenges.” But there isn’t enough change in his pockets. She pretends not to notice and swipes her card.
Arms full of groceries, they return to the cafe, where she orders him a toasted sandwich with the works. His eyes gleam.
“What coffee would you like?’ she smiles.
In a coffee-obsessed city, it’s been a long time since someone asked.
Seated in the cafe, eyeing a hot meal and fresh coffee, he feels self-conscious. This reversal of fortune has happened in the course of his 20-minute appointment.
“Eat at your own pace and then catch the bus home”, my friend says lightly.
“And you?” he asks.
“I’ll get back to work.”
His eyes brimming, he says: “Doctor, I will pay you back one day.”
“I know you’ll pay it forward,” she replies.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“A Google review!” she jests. “We are due for accreditation.”
A few days later, my friend mentions the encounter to me when contrasting the privileges we take for granted against the deprivation of the people we treat.
This gets me thinking about all the patients I see – often socioeconomically disadvantaged and mentally ill, yes, but just as often having fallen through gaps from a previous place of safety.
I have felt for their situation and offered kind words but can’t readily recall a spontaneous kindness so boldly practical.
I feel proud of my friend but can’t help wondering if I have fallen short of my own expectations.
I marvel how, in a split-second, she went from doctor to fellow human. How she stuck with her gut response, backed empathy over “true” doctoring and found the self-assurance to walk out in scrubs with a patient and haul back groceries.
Theodore Roosevelt observed that, in any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. But if you can’t do it for everyone, should you do it for anyone? So, as I listen to her, my mind is turning over the question whether I would have found the courage to do what my friend did.
Medicine is full of comparisons. Unexpectedly, this one gets under my skin.
Of course, my question to her comes out all wrong: “Did you wonder about the ethics of it all?”
“What, the ethics of buying food for a hungry man?”
Touché.
No day passes without doctors being scorned in the media. General practitioners are put under pressure by the government and community for not bulk-billing enough, not seeing enough patients, not doing enough for patients. Specialists are under attack for earning too much and caring too little.
Some criticism is fair and doctors should heed it. But underneath the bubble and froth of medicine runs a deep current of altruism and empathy for the human condition, which represents the best of what it takes to be a doctor. It is inspiring yet rarely acknowledged – but I hope it never dies out.
My friend will hasten to tell you she is not alone. Every day, healthcare professionals perform remarkable acts of kindness that only they and their recipients know. In fact, it was the practice nurse who first unearthed the patient’s hunger but her message to the doctor arrived late.
My friend didn’t tell anyone else about her day, which is when I decided that these stories deserve to be told.
In case you are wondering about the Google review, the patient gave her five stars. He thanked his doctor for saving him again. But what made her exceptional, he said, was her understanding that kindness comes in many forms.
• Ranjana Srivastava is an Australian oncologist, award-winning author and Fulbright scholar. Her latest book is Every Word Matters: Writing to Engage the Public
