On average, physicians interrupt patients within eighteen seconds of when they begin telling their story.

Many years before when I had serious back pain from a sports injury, the surgeons said they would explore my spine and "figure it out." Out of frustration I had impulsively opted for the procedure. They ended up fusing the vertebrae. It left me debilitated. In hindsight, I blamed myself more than the surgeons. I had pressed them for a solution when in fact none was apparent because the cause of the pain was obscure.

Hope differs from optimism. Hope does not arise from being told to "think positively," or from hearing an overly rosy forecast. Hope, unlike optimism, is rooted in unalloyed reality.

I had learned that every patient has the right to hope, despite long odds, and it was my role to help nurture that hope.

Help, then, is the ballast that keeps us steady, that recognizes where along the path are the dangers and pitfalls that can throw us off; hope tempers fear so we can recognize dangers and then bypass or endure them.

Hope is the elevating feeling we experience when we see - in the mind's eye - a path to a better future.

False hope can lead to intemperate choices and flawed decision making. True hope takes into account the real threats that exist and seeks to navigate the best path around them.