The Radical Concept of Care

We have been struck by the kindnesses. Accompanying my parents on a medical safari through the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, we have certainly been the beneficiaries of those kindnesses, ourselves. Receptionists, housekeepers, nurses and doctors – everyone we have encountered has beamed a genuine smile, extended a helping and patient hand, and generally made us feel like their sole reason for waking up in the morning has been to make us comfortable, oriented and content. And while that has been a welcomed surprise (those not being my typical adjectives for describing experiences with the medical community), what has amazed us has been the generosity with which those graces have been offered amongst themselves – doctors to nurses, housekeepers to receptionists, and even doctors to each other.

Kindness, rather impatience. Cooperation, rather than competition. Appreciation, rather than presumption. Fundamental respect – as if, in language more familiar to my environs, people generally do recognize, around here, in each other’s faces the very image of God.

It reminds me of a restaurant experience that Lori and I enjoyed a few years ago outside of Portland, Oregon where, because of a serendipitous acquaintance the night before, we were privileged to sit at the counter of the exposed kitchen in the working company of the chef. We were intrigued by the intricate activity – the cooking and the assembling, the staging and the arranging for all the patrons of this busy bistro – but what awed us was the palpable kindness that oiled the movements and the mechanics between preparers and servers. It was a like a gentle ballet, with the kitchen voices amiably calling to the servers, “Amy, please,” or whose ever order was ready at the time. Kindly respect, which made it difficult for the customers to participate in the experience with anything but the same.

Back at Mayo, we wheeled the chair between clinics and floors, from one lab to another, and sat in one doctor’s presence after another. And without exception, we experienced people looking into our eyes, not simply Mother’s charts. We experienced people listening to her story and to her spirit, not merely to her symptoms.

And we had the unshakable impression that all of these specialists and assistants were not simply accommodating; were not merely fascinated by the physiological conundrums of medical complications. We left with the sense that they genuinely cared.

Imagine that: people, caring about people. What a radical concept.

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