In the compelling essay “Misunderstood: How physicians deliver sub-par care when we ignore language and cultural barriers” by pediatrician Vidya Viswanathan (Fall 2021 Intima), the author writes about her experience as a medical student watching her attending physician administer a cognitive assessment test on a Chinese man with his shy granddaughters as translators. A mere student, she feels unqualified to intervene, but knows intuitively this test is not being conducted accurately. Having also studied Mandarin, she catches some of the Cantonese sentences and can glean where the translation is failing. The physician’s need to move on to the next patient distorts the outcome. (He doesn’t even inquire about using a Cantonese test.) He drops the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s from on high and his patient’s identity shifts based on a faulty test and a rushed exam in the wrong language. A 2025 study in the Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology showed that if people are in a hurry, they don’t stop to help. Who knew that time was the biggest factor in compassion?

In my essay “Angel Lounge,” I explore what it is like to be cared for with someone whose pace is catered to me. The cancer nurses in the support center moved slowly, took me in and listened rather than acting as the determiners. My experience before that had been similar to the Cantonese man in “Misunderstood.” One doctor looked only at my chart. One put his hand up in my face to get me to stop talking. Drug side effects were waved off with “Would you rather be dead?” The nurses in “Angel Lounge” had time and no agenda except support.

The center was my rest stop in my trek through cancer. It shimmers through my own understanding of how to care for people. I underwent five surgeries in six months, and more blood draws, MRIs and check-ups than I can keep track of. But over a decade later, what I remember most is a feeling of restoration. One nurse said to me when I was deciding about breast implants, which were being touted as miraculous by my surgeons, “You’re the one who will be living with or without them; you’re the only one who gets to decide.” Being a patient makes you feel like a baby in a basket floating down a river with rapids. Reminding me of my fading identity as a woman of strength and agency, these nurses drew me out of the water.