Stories from medical staff

It was day 13 of a double shift. I had slept only four hours in two days. My lab coat was stained with coffee, and my dark circles could practically be a diagnosis. I was exhausted. I wondered if all this effort was worth it. Then Mateo arrived. Six years old. Leukemia. Big bright eyes, no eyebrows. He walked into my office with a smile and a dinosaur backpack. He asked me, “Are you going to cure me today, doctor, or just give me a shot?” I laughed and replied, “Today we’ll do both.” For weeks I cared for him, and every day he brought me a drawing: a dinosaur, an astronaut, a super doctor. He told me, “I want to be like you, but without injections.” One day he came more serious. I asked why. He said, “I know I might die, but if I do, I want you to remember me as the one who made you laugh.” I held back tears. Mateo passed away two months later. I keep all his drawings. When I doubt this profession, I take them out, look at them, and tell myself: it’s worth it. Because sometimes, it’s not us who heal. It’s them who, without knowing it, heal us.

When I finished medical school, like many others, I dreamed of working in a modern hospital, surrounded by technology and colleagues. But before getting there, I had a mission to fulfill: social service. What I didn’t know then was that this year would mark me forever. I was assigned to a small community in the mountains of Guerrero. I knew nothing about the place—only that it was far, very far away. When I arrived, I found dirt roads, humble houses, and a clinic that looked more like an abandoned warehouse. No potable water, no steady electricity, no cell phone signal. I was alone, in every sense. At first, I admit I was scared. Scared of not knowing what to do if an emergency came. Scared of getting sick. Scared of failing. But I also had a deep conviction: I wanted to help. I didn’t know how, but I knew I had to. The first days were tough. People looked at me with suspicion, as if they didn’t believe a young doctor could help them. Little by little, with each consultation, with every home visit, with every kind word, that distrust began to change. I had to attend births by the light of a flashlight, give IVs with my own limited resources, improvise medications with what little I had. And yet, every smile, every “thank you, doctor,” was a spark of hope that pushed me to keep going. I will never forget a mother who came with her child burning with fever. We only had paracetamol and cold compresses. I stayed by his side all night, caring for him as if he were my own. When the child got better, she hugged me tightly and said through tears, “You are the best thing that has happened to this town.” At that moment, I knew I was exactly where I was meant to be. There were cold nights, endless days, and moments when I felt completely defeated. But there was also a strength inside me I didn’t know existed. I learned to trust my instincts, to value what is essential, and to see medicine as something much deeper than a prescription or diagnosis.

I'm a paramedic. I've been riding in an ambulance for nine years. I've seen it all: births in traffic jams, shootings, falls, accidents. But some calls stay with you. One morning, we responded to a call about a suicide attempt. A young woman had jumped from a second-story window. When we arrived, we found her conscious, with visible fractures. Her name was Karina. She was 19 years old. While we were restraining her, she cried silently. She took my wrist and whispered: “Don’t scold me. I just didn’t know who to ask for help.” I talked to her the whole way in the ambulance. I told her she could rebuild her life. She didn't look at me, but she didn't let go of my hand. When we arrived at the hospital, the doctors continued treating her. I stood in the hallway, feeling like I hadn't done enough. A week later I returned to the same hospital. I asked about her. They told me she had died from a pulmonary embolism, a post-surgical complication. Since then, every time I receive a mental health call, I treat it with the same urgency as a cardiac arrest. I understood that not all emergencies are visible and that invisible wounds can be just as deadly. More than saving lives, I now know that I must protect hope and listen with empathy, because behind every silence lies a deep desire to live.

My name is Natalia Jiménez, an intensive care nurse in Mexico City. In December 2022, I cared for Alan, a 27-year-old who was admitted after a motorcycle accident. Severe head trauma. He was sedated, intubated, connected to three machines. The prognosis was uncertain. From day one, his mother came with a notebook. She wrote down everything: doses, reactions, conversations. She told me, “When he wakes up, he’ll want to know what happened. He writes poetry. He’ll write about this.” I didn’t know if Alan would wake up, but I followed the routine as if he could hear me. Every night, I whispered in his ear: “I’m here, Alan. Today you saw the sunset through the window, even if you don’t know it.” I gently changed his sheets, massaged his legs to prevent ulcers, played his favorite song on a small speaker. On December 29, his vital signs began to decline. We started resuscitation. I stayed with him until the end. He died that night. His mother hugged me and, without crying, handed me the notebook. On the last page, she had written: “Though he didn’t speak, I know he felt he wasn’t alone.” Since then, I keep that notebook. It reminds me that sometimes, the most valuable thing we give as nurses isn’t a technique but a real, silent, constant presence.

I received a call at three in the morning. It was from Civil Protection: “There’s a landslide at a mining camp, we need urgent medical support.” I was doing my undergraduate internship in Zacatecas, and without hesitation, I said “yes.” They took us in trucks to a mountainous area. Total darkness. Rain. People shouting. Men covered in mud searching for their companions. There was no hospital nearby, just a tent and a table. I was assigned to stabilize the rescued. I had never felt so much fear… nor so much responsibility. One of the miners had an open fracture on his leg, and all I had were gauzes, painkillers, and a flashlight. We both trembled. I took his hand, looked into his eyes, and said, “I’m with you. We’re going to do this right.” I spent eight hours there. I wasn’t a surgeon or an intensivist. I was human. I cleaned wounds, held a child who was asking if his dad was going to come back. Sometimes, medicine is learned outside the hospital. That day I discovered that being a doctor isn’t just about diagnosing. It’s about not turning your back when you’re needed, even if you’re not ready. Because no one ever is… until the moment arrives.

My rural residency was in a coastal community in Oaxaca. There, everything was nature and scarcity. There was no hospital, only a small makeshift clinic with a tin roof and a rusty stretcher. One stormy early morning, a woman knocked on my door. She was soaking wet and in labor. She had been walking from her ranch more than three kilometers away. Her husband had carried her part of the way. There was no time to transfer her anywhere else. By the light of a battery-powered lamp and with thunder rumbling in the background, I delivered my first unsupervised birth. My hands trembled, but my heart was steady. A beautiful, strong baby girl was born, crying as soon as I held her. I wrapped her in a blanket and cried with them. The three of us cried. After the delivery, the mother said to me, “We didn’t know if we would make it. Thank you for being here, doctor.” That phrase stayed with me. Because being there, at the right moment, under the toughest conditions, is part of the calling. That girl carries my name as her middle name. “Estebana,” her mother told me. Sometimes I receive letters from them. She grew up healthy. And I’m still the doctor who once welcomed a life born in the rain.

I'm Pablo, a palliative care nurse. I work on the coast of Nayarit, accompanying patients who no longer want to die surrounded by tubes and monitors. I care for those who choose to pass away at home. Or on their beach. Maria was 63 years old. Ovarian cancer, terminal stage. She decided not to return to the hospital. “If I die, let it be smelling the sea,” she said the first time I visited her. She asked me for something I initially thought impossible: one last afternoon by the ocean. With the help of volunteers and his family, we arranged a discreet transfer. In a pickup truck, with portable oxygen and IV drips hanging from makeshift hooks, we set up his stretcher in front of the beach, under a palapa. She barely spoke, but asked me to play bolero music. I took her hand, moistened her lips, and adjusted the oxygen flow every 10 minutes. She breathed deeply, as if she wanted to take all that salty air with her. At dusk, he stopped breathing. His daughter hugged me: “Thank you for allowing him to say goodbye the way he wanted. He passed away peacefully.” That night I calmly cleaned the equipment, knowing that we had fulfilled a wish that no medicine could offer. I learned that in some cases, dignity at the end of life is the most profound act of care we can offer. Fulfilling Maria's wish not only eased her physical pain but also restored her sense of control and peace as she said goodbye. This human support transcends any medicine; it is the true heart of my work.

My name is Martín Olvera. After finishing medical school, I was assigned to social service at a rural health center in the Sierra of Chiapas. There was no laboratory, no ambulances, no internet. Sometimes, not even electricity. Julián was the first patient I couldn’t save. He was 14 years old. He arrived almost unconscious, brought in the back of a truck by his father. He had a very high fever, bleeding gums, and a dull expression. We laid him on a worn-out stretcher while I checked his vital signs with a stethoscope that was years old. Probable diagnosis: hemorrhagic dengue. I placed an IV line, gave him oral paracetamol because it was all we had. We hydrated him manually. I used cloth towels that a local woman had brought from her home to make compresses. I wrote down his vitals in a notebook. I sat by his side all night. At 4:17 a.m., I learned he had passed away. The silence was brutal. His father, standing, looked at me and said: “Thank you for trying, doctor.” That night I understood that medicine doesn’t always fail because of lack of knowledge, but because of lack of resources. Julián taught me what university couldn’t: pain isn’t only physical; it’s also structural.

I worked for a year in a geriatric health center in Guadalajara. There, I met Don Tomás, 89 years old, with moderate-stage dementia. He was calm but repeated one phrase every day: “I have no one left.” At first, we thought it was part of his cognitive decline. But one day, he asked me to sit with him. He said he had something important to tell me. He began to talk about his wife, who had passed away 15 years earlier, his daughter who lived in another country, and how every morning he woke up hoping someone would listen to him. We started a routine: every afternoon, I sat with him for 15 minutes. No records, no pressure, just listening. One day he said to me, “Thank you, son, for giving me back my voice.” That deeply touched me. Nursing is not just technique. Sometimes, it’s being the only one to ask, “How are you today?” When Don Tomás passed away, I felt empty. But also at peace. Because I knew someone listened to him until the end. That was my greatest lesson: never underestimate the power of time and attention. In a system where everything is fast, listening is revolutionary.