02 Oct She is Someone
It
was Friday. An extra busy day in the substance use disorder treatment center
where, at the time, I was supervising medical residents.
As we were sitting around a conference table finishing morning rounds, the
receptionist interrupted to say a high ranking university staff member had
called on behalf of his daughter, who was desperate to get help for her drug
use.
“I don’t care who she is,” a new attending physician sitting next to me
interjected loudly.
The receptionist looked shocked. “So, w-w-what do you want me to say to him?”
The
receptionist looked terrified. I felt for her. She looked toward the door – she
might have been considering quitting and running out the back exit rather than
delivering this news of rejection to the university staff member.
“Put her in my schedule over lunch,” the physician said.
The receptionist looked confused. “But, I thought you just said you didn’t care
who she was.”
“I don’t,” he replied. “Who she is as someone’s daughter – or sister or cousin
or friend – isn’t what matters. She is someone. She wants help. That’s what
matters.”
During the time I worked with this physician, he repeatedly gave up his lunch
hour or stayed late for people. And it never depended on who the person
was.
Of course, getting access to services is not always so easy and represents a
major challenge of addiction treatment. But what an important lesson – refusing
to define a person by her connection to someone else, and instead seeing her
value because she is someone.