I saw the physician I was working with return from the cafeteria with her normal cup of coffee and a second small coffee. She walked by our computer station and into the patient’s room.

The patient had been plagued by a headache that morning when I saw them, not long before the physician arrived with a cup of coffee. The patient had requested coffee because it usually helped with their headaches. Of course, they would get coffee with their breakfast tray later, but that could take hours.

The patient had had a rough year. They’d been in the intensive care unit several times after trying to kill themselves, the first time almost not surviving. They’d lost a child to overdose. Their life had other stress-causing features. The patient was calm when they were under our care, but they’d attacked their nursing staff earlier on during their hospital stay.  

When the physician returned to our computer station, I thanked her for getting the patient a cup of coffee. Little acts of kindness like that are not as common as you’d like them to be. The hospital is full of burnt-out thoughtful people (also known as staff). It’s also full of people with all kinds of diseases. The diseases of the brain can be quite tough. When a psychiatric illness sends people to the hospital, there’s the suffering of the patient and there’s the challenges that they sometimes pose for medical staff. The brain is a powerful organ and when it gets sick it can do all kinds of things. As such, when healthcare staff are overworked (which is always these days) and when the hospital is full (which is most of the time), patients with brain diseases do not always receive the kindness that they deserve from their care teams. But, on that morning, this patient did.

I thought about that cup of coffee. It brightened the patient’s morning. It can be hard to remember the little things we can do to help others. But, on this occasion, the physician I was working with reminded me by setting an example.