RESPONSE TIME | Macie Garner
Preparing
I was asked to lead the interview. My peers stood along the edges of the room, watching as I took my place across from her. I was aware of them as I began, of how I sounded, of whether I was asking the questions in the right order.
I ask the questions I am supposed to ask. They come easily, the way they were practiced. My pen moves as she answers, her gaze fixed somewhere past me, her hands held tightly in her lap, fingers pressed together. The scratch of my pen fills the pauses between her responses, the fluorescent lights humming above us. I nod, write, and move to the next question.
The room is quiet, the kind of quiet that feels controlled. She answers without hesitation. I continue. When I finish, I thank her and step back. She remains where she is. The doctor steps forward. “I know you’ve been waiting for your bloodwork results,” he says. “You are HIV positive.”
No one writes. The pen feels heavier in my hand. I look at her then, not as someone moving through an interview, but as someone who had been sitting with that possibility the entire time. The sentence lands differently than anything I had written. I think back to the questions, how easily they came, how quickly I moved from one to the next. I wasn’t the only one getting ready. None of my questions held what she was waiting for.
Seeing
Anxious as I begin my community experience at the developmental center, I trail the staff as a student observer. My aim is to observe how clinicians engage with children and how the children respond, but I feel the weight of my own inexperience in the quiet, linoleum-tiled room. I try to stay out of the way, to learn by watching, but the silence is punctuated only by the hum of the overhead lights and the distant, muffled sounds of a busy hallway. The first patient, only two years old, becomes my introduction.
I try to make him laugh, relying on the visual script I have seen adults use with children. Without thinking, I widen my eyes, lift my eyebrows, and stretch a smile across my face, waiting for the expected reaction. But he doesn’t laugh. I try again, exaggerating my expression and leaning closer, hoping for something—anything. Each attempt feels more deliberate and forced than the last. I become acutely aware of the effort; of how much I am trying to be seen in a room where the silence feels heavier than I expected.
The nurse watches quietly at first. Then she says it, gently. “He can’t see you.”
My movements suddenly feel too loud for the room. I step closer, unsure what to do without the visual cues I had previously relied on. “Hi,” I say, softer this time. He turns toward the sound of my voice and smiles. I stay for a moment, speaking quietly. He responds easily now, without the need for exaggerated gestures or the effort of a performance. I had been waiting to be seen. He had been listening.
Macie Garner is a second-year medical student with an interest in dermatology, particularly the psychodermatological interface between skin and mental health. Her work explores perception, communication and the lived experiences of patients within clinical encounters. See more of her work on The Science of Skin — and What It Means to Live In It.