At times, in medicine, you feel you are inside a colossal and impossibly complex machine whose gears will turn for you only according to their own ar… - Atul Gawande

Nonetheless, what I saw was: better is possible. It does not take genius. It takes diligence. It takes moral clarity. It takes ingenuity. And above all, it takes a willingness to try.

There is, however, a skill to it, a developed body of professional expertise. One may not be able to fix such problems, but one can manage them. And until I visited my hospital’s geriatrics clinic and saw the work that the clinicians there do, I did not fully grasp the nature of the expertise involved, or how important it could be for all of us.

A nurse has five seconds to make a patient like you and trust you. It’s in the whole way you present yourself. I do not come in saying, ‘I’m so sorry.’ Instead, it’s: ‘I’m the hospice nurse, and here’s what I have to offer you to make your life better. And I know we don’t have a lot of time to waste.