“A week does not go by without a resident, colleague, or family member asking me, “How do you do this work?” What they are really asking is: how do you sit next to this suffering? For me, this question is much less about how I do this work and instead about how any of us continues to live in the present, knowing that some amount of suffering may be right around the corner. Returning to noticing has saved my humanity and access to gratitude many times over. This capacity lives right next to the grief, regardless of whether I choose to pay attention.“

The Cardinal in the Bamboo

Annals of Internal Medicine