We come into medicine wanting to heal our patients, believing that we are here solely to help them. But I could not heal my patient. Instead, my patient healed me.

Fourth-year medical student Emily Otiso reflects on a patient who reminded her that connection is the soul of her work.

This essay placed third in the 2023 Hope Babette Tang Humanism in Healthcare Essay Contest and was published in the October 2023 issue of Academic Medicine. Read the essay at academicmedicine.org.