“They should have a vaccine for cancer.” Tears were running down his face and onto his lap as I passed him another tissue. He couldn’t continue chemotherapy until the wound on his leg healed.
It was my fourth day on my pediatric plastic surgery rotation as a third-year medical student and I was learning how to do a wound vacuum-assisted closure. He begged us to leave him alone. “I want my knee back,” he started raising his voice. “I don’t want this metal in my leg!”
His mother was asleep on a chair in the corner of the room, not even waking when the ringtone from her phone blared throughout the room. She was exhausted from the endless doctors’ appointments with her young son who was battling osteosarcoma.
I tried to distract him with small talk, asking about his favorite TV show and how school was going. He thought it was funny when I said, “I’m old and I’m still in school, isn’t that embarrassing?” He asked about my summer break, and I told him I had to go to school over the summer, too.
“You failed?” Was his stunned response. I laughed when he asked me this.
“No, they make us go over the summer!” He didn’t believe me, and we laughed together.
I made him guess my age and height — 21 years old and six feet tall, he guessed. As a 5’4 26-year-old, I told him I’d take that answer. We guessed what his temperature would be; he won.
He started to cry again when I was adjusting the wound vacuum. I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. He said he has dreams of becoming a scientist and inventing the vaccine for cancer. “You better remember me when you’re a big famous scientist,” I smiled softly at him. “I’ll only remember you if you look the same,” he told me. We were laughing once again.
When he was getting ready to leave, he was insistent that he didn’t want the metal in his leg anymore or the necessary surgery. I told him how cool it was that he had metal in his leg and that the best surgeon would be operating on him.
“Are you going to be my surgeon?” He asked.
“No, I’m just a student, you don’t want me!” I chuckled thinking about how he assumed I was referring to myself as the “best surgeon.”
I brought him to the toy machine. We inserted coins and a blue glitter rubber duck came out. “That’s the best toy in there,” I told him. He believed me.
As he wheeled himself from the office, I told him again that he better not forget me when he invents the vaccine for cancer and that I want his first autograph. At this point, his tears had stopped and he was smiling.
I firmly believe that laughter is the best medicine. My grandmother grew up in a war-torn town, lost her parents as a child, and had many reasons to be resentful for her circumstances. Yet she laughed all the time. She lived to 90 years old with multiple comorbidities but was seemingly invincible. She let laughter carry her through. And so, I continue to smile and laugh. If she could do it, so can I.
I quickly learned during my third-year clinical rotations that a smile can go a long way. Over the past six months, I have had patients with conditions ranging from diabetes and hypertension to devastating brain injuries and terminal cancer. In even the bleakest moments, a sympathetic smile is almost always welcome. A smile shows compassion; it shows that we care.
While a lighthearted approach may not always be fitting, I will continue to greet each patient and their family with a smile when appropriate. I believe it sets the tone for our interaction. This simple gesture — treating them as I would anyone outside the hospital — also helps remind me to see the patient beyond their medical condition.
Although I will never be 21 years old again and will never be six feet tall, I might see a day when a vaccine for osteosarcoma is invented. Even then, I will continue to provide the best medicine possible with a smile and a laugh.
Contributing Writer
Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine
Christine Zickler is a medical student at Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine in Miami, FL, Class of 2026. In 2020, she graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a Bachelor of Arts in english with a concentration in creative writing. She enjoys long walks by the water in her free time. After graduating medical school, Christine would like to pursue a career in pediatric orthopedic surgery.