8:00 A.M.

I knock on the door of my first clinic appointment. He is a longtime patient with opioid use disorder who is here for a buprenorphine/naloxone refill. My nurse tells me he does not seem well. Looking at his vital signs, I notice a heart rate of 133 beats per minute. I walk into the room and see that he is alert but appears ill and pale with a rattling cough. I ask him to go to the emergency department and my nurse calls transport to take him there immediately.

10:00 A.M.

I am seeing a patient to discuss her anxiety. Her symptoms are well controlled on sertraline. She excitedly shares with me that she is pregnant, and we celebrate the news. We had discussed safe medications during pregnancy at her past several visits, but she is still wondering if she can use propranolol for her occasional situational anxiety. I reassure her that it is safe.

11:00 A.M.

I walk in to see one of my sweetest and most energetic patients for a well-child visit. She is 7 years old and, as usual, has her hair in exquisite braids. At the end of the visit, I ask what lollipop flavor she wants, but I already know the answer: peach, pineapple, and root beer; all three, please!

11:30 A.M.

I check the electronic health record for my patient whom I sent to the emergency department earlier. He has a hemoglobin level of less than 7 g per dL, an elevated white blood cell count, and pneumonia visible on chest CT. He is already receiving a unit of blood for his anemia and IV antibiotics for sepsis secondary to pneumonia. I am relieved he agreed to go to the emergency department.

12:00 P.M.

I call a 22-year-old patient who had an ectopic pregnancy 4 years ago. She came in last week for abnormal vaginal bleeding. I ordered a quantitative human chorionic gonadotropin blood test and repeat testing in 48 hours because she is sexually active and not using contraception. I receive her laboratory results, and they indicate she is having a miscarriage. She has an initial human chorionic gonadotropin level of 114 mIU, and it is 66 mIU with repeat testing. We discuss a management plan, including pelvic ultrasonography and repeat human chorionic gonadotropin testing 1 week after her bleeding has stopped.

1:30 P.M.

I drive to meet a resident at a patient's house for a home visit. Our team has cared for this patient in the hospital for several months, from the time she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer until she went into hospice. As a professor and physiologist, she had good-naturedly quizzed us about her illness and its pathology on our hospital rounds. She hugged us all when we visited and before we left. She knew everyone's name, from the transport tech to the attending physician. In her short months with our team, she has taught us to truly see others, including our patients. I feel fortunate to see her one final time, in her last hours of hospice. I walk up the sidewalk and knock on the door.