The 1st step may not be the noblest...

... but it should prompt you to take more.

Today, walking out of pediatrics to head home for the day, I saw a Hispanic lady in the waiting area outside the ward weeping into a towel. I had seen her earlier on the floor; she was presumbly the parent of one of the kids on the ward (not one of my patients). She had expressed to the nurses in her broken English that she was stepping out to get some air, and her demeanor then had been cheerful and pleasant. Imagine my dumbfounded surprise when I saw her crying.

I wish I had done more than just ask "Are you OK?" and accepted her hasty nod yes. Not that I believed her, but because at the moment, I was scared and felt inadequate and didn't know if I could help her. But that last bit is a sympathetic lie to myself - of course I could have done something to help her, and I should have. Even walking out, I knew that at any moment I could turn back, call the translator, and try to assuage what worries she probably had about her child. I would not have been overstepping my boundaries, or if I truly felt that I was, I could have called her physician to talk to her. But the fear of doing something unfamiliar stopped me, so there I was, sitting in my car, justifying my inaction on the grounds that she would feel better soon, maybe she just needed to cry, the translator might be out... name an excuse, and I thought of it. And then I drove home.

Not long ago, Lydia and I discussed how the 21st century, despite all its progress, is an era that has cultivated fear. I'm not referring so much to 9/11 and the subsequent actions of the Bush administration (although that certainly changed my experience of America more than I would like), but to the caution that was drilled into us even as young children. We are the generation of throwing away unwrapped Halloween candy, of never picking up hitchhikers, of not looking the homeless in the eye. So is it any surprise that as adults, our mindset is insular, hesitant even when our sense tells us we won't die if we help a random stranger who does not dress like us or talk like us? The world is our oyster, but we crack it open with only a select few.

I had thought about all this before, yet I still hesitated today. I am certainly not proud of that.

I guess if one good thing came out of that experience, it's that I will absolutely loathe myself if I allow it to happen again. The next time I see a scared patient or family member, I will get involved, even if it means I feel stupid doing so. Even if the fear is not gone. After all, what is the worst that can happen?