I received an odd, and rather moving, compliment from my Medical Assistant yesterday. [View all]

We were doing an after-action review at the end of a very long, difficult day. We were commiserating over the habits of a certain kind of patient who tells the MA what they're here for (a single, simple problem), but, once the provider is in the exam room, pulls out a list of fifteen items, all of which they want evaluated in a single clinic visit.

My MA told me how "the patient will tell me one thing, and then you get into the room, and they see that soft, beautiful, caring face, and they add all kinds of things onto the visit!"

I pulled a bit of a face and muttered "...soft?...beautiful?..." and the rest of the team laughed. But I wasn't laughing inside. It was a very sweet thing to say. Just the kind of thing to lighten up what had been a very hard day.