There is a constant physical and emotional distance that separates a doctor and a sick patient, as though a rising tide were filling a channel that lay between them. But that space is not entirely empty. It is filled with emotion—hers of anguish, mine of a welling sense of dread. As long as my dread remains hidden, I can muster the degree of calmness and patience that allows me to stay at the bedside and be effective. Knowing how high the tide will go, I can sometimes see that it will take my patient with it. At such moments I have the comfort of knowing that I will be going home to my wife,
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