“Am I going to be OK, doc?”“Yes. Yes, you are.”“How do you know?”“Because I'm a doctor.”These are powerful words, and it is impressive how very much we want to say them. The patient is in distress. The physician's voice is calm, reassuring. “You're going to be OK. I'm a doctor. I know.” If only our words could make it so. I was listening to this conversation between a patient and a physician who had never met him before and who had no idea why the patient was in the hospital. We were doing some quality improvement work and had stopped to talk to a patient about his experience. The patient had a gauze dressing wrapped around his head and could not remember how long he had been in the hospital. He said he was tired. He very much wanted to go home. Could we tell him when he could leave? Could we tell him whether he was going to be OK?
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