Not so long ago I worked a code (cardiac arrest = patient’s heart stops and they neither have a pulse nor are breathing) in the field. The patient was middle-aged and had a complex medical history. The patient’s father, visiting from out-of-town, found him unresponsive, started compressions, and called 911. We did all we could—did compressions, ventilated, pushed epinephrine and other medications, and analyzed for a shockable rhythm. As we worked the father knelt at his son’s head. The patient’s fiancée sat outside the house. As it became clear that we were not getting our patient back, my crew chief reviewed, outload, all we had done. She asked us if we could think of any other interventions we hadn’t yet done and then she engaged the father, explaining why we were going to stop resuscitation. Once we had stopped she went outside to talk to the fiancée.

As heartbroken as the patient’s family was, they were calm when we stopped CPR. They had seen us sweat over their loved one, try everything we could, and ask for suggestions. We included them in our decision to stop our efforts. We lingered after our care was done to answer questions and offer condolences. This call showed me how it is within the pauses between action that we connect with our patients.

The human side of medicine comes through when we take time to ensure our patients understand what is happening and our plan for treatment. It comes when we include our patients and, when appropriate, their family in decisions about their care. And it’s completed by taking a moment to share their feelings, whether of relief after a successful procedure or sorrow after the loss of a loved one, before we scurry on to our next case.

Amid medical histories and assessments of signs and symptoms that lead to differential diagnoses it can be easy to let the presence of a disease or condition consume our attention. We can focus so intently on the disease that we forget humans bear the illness. But, below the clammy skin and wheezing is a person with a family and life experience just like you and me. And, what the patient will remember from their time during the flurry of a medical crisis is how someone treated them. It’s the offering of a kind word or an act of kindness on the worst day of someone’s life, not just the hope and likelihood that we have a cure, that defines good medicine. I try to remember to take advantage of the pauses by offering a blanket or bit of conversation to my patients. There aren’t always many pauses in my day, but when there are I don’t like letting them go to waste. It’s in the shared moments between points A and B that we build our humanity, but we must be attentive or we’ll miss the opportunity.