“You have time to hear it?”

“We have time to start,” I answered.

I discovered that medicine was full of small opportunities to practice respect: explaining an unfamiliar term, letting a parent finish a question, admitting when I needed help, returning a call instead of assuming somebody else would.

Some evenings were difficult.

The clinic couldn’t erase homelessness or replace a lost paycheck.

We connected people with services where we could, and sometimes a family still left with problems too large for a prescription.

It helped to know the difference between care and rescue.