An elderly acquaintance of mine recently fell and had to be taken by ambulance to the emergency room. I followed her to be present as they made decisions about her situation until her family arrived. Over the course of a few days, I witnessed a full spectrum of care between the staff in the emergency room and the hospital.

Those attending to her in the emergency room were pleasant and spoke directly to her as they shared her prognosis and how they planned to treat her. They asked her what she liked to do and showed interest in her as a human being, not simply as just another patient passing through the ER. The result of this care allowed her to develop trust among these strangers, which, in turn, kept her calm and upbeat as they ran tests and maneuvered her back and forth for several hours.

By contrast, when I arrived to her hospital room a few days later following her surgery, the young nurse assigned to her care lacked any engagement or warmth. He entered the room, avoiding eye contact, to turn off a beeping machine. When she asked for a juice, he retrieved one for her and quickly turned to exit the room. She asked if he could peel back the juice top. She had broken her dominant arm making it impossible to have use of both hands. He looked put off. She noticed.

As I left the hospital, I wondered if some of the nurse's lack of engagement stemmed from an inability to relate to this elderly woman. When we are faced with people who are different from us for any reason, how often do we pause to see them as human beings first... human beings like us... before narrating an internal story that keeps us separate and distant?

What if this nurse had been able to tap into her pain, or the distress of being unable to be as active as she wished, or the boredom or loneliness she felt as she sat alone in her room. When we take a moment to relate to another’s suffering, we find compassion and empathy... and something that looks a little like us too.