Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center

Stacy L. C. Colimore

After decades in healthcare, I’m still in awe of the sacredness of caring—for patients and for each other.

At 26, I was diagnosed with an ovarian tumor. Facing surgery and uncertainty about my future, I was suddenly dropped into the world of all-consuming fear that patients experience every day— changing me forever. Although my tumor turned out to be benign, my heart couldn’t un-feel that fear and I knew that my life’s purpose was to care for patients in their most vulnerable moments. After I healed, I left my job and went to nursing school.

When I got to the bedside in 1999, I carried my personal healthcare journey and the words from my childhood priest: “Go forth to love and serve the Lord by loving and serving one another.” My healthcare experience and faith are my “why”, the reason that I chose to care. Since then, I’ve journeyed from nursing assistant to nursing director, recognizing that my passion is creating a compassionate human experience, which led me to patient experience leadership.

Caring for others is sacred. It’s sacred because we decide to care for others. However, over time the proverbial cup runs dry. Healthcare workers carry so much— personal trauma, witnessed trauma and suffering, increased demands and mounting violence. So, what sustains compassion? What makes it possible to keep showing up, keep caring, keep seeing the person in front of us?

I believe it is the unique “why” of each healthcare professional who has been called to care for others that ultimately fuels compassion and a healthcare system rich in humanity.

“Being perfectly imperfect doesn’t prevent us from providing excellent care, it enables it. Our humanity, our vulnerability, our willingness to say “i don’t know but i’m here with you—just as you are and just as i am,” is what makes healing possible.”

Many of us were cracked open by something—illness, loss, lack, fear—and that crack became our WHY. We didn’t choose healthcare despite being broken. We chose it because our brokenness opened our hearts to the suffering of others. Compassion, understanding and presence leak outemerge from our cracks and of us and are exactly what patients need to receive and what we need to give.

It made me think of parable of the Cracked Pot: A water bearer carried two pots on a pole across her shoulders each day. One pot was perfect. The other had a crack on its side. Every day, the cracked pot leaked half its water. Finally, the cracked pot cried out: “I’m so sorry. I’m broken. I fail at my purpose every day.” The water bearer smiled and said, “Look behind you.” The cracked pot saw beautiful flowers had bloomed on its side of the path, fed by its water that leaked out over the years. The perfect pot’s side was bare. “I’ve always known about your crack,” the water bearer said. “I planted seeds on your side. Because of your crack, my master’s table has fresh flowers. You’re not broken. You’re exactly what was needed.”

We’re not broken. We’re perfectly cracked. What cracked you open and led you to healthcare? How has your crack made you what your team and patients need?

Healthcare operates on an unspoken, misleading assumption: providers are competent and whole, treating patients who are vulnerable and broken.

What if the struggles and challenges our patients share give us the opportunity to love a little harder and give a little more? What if patients carry the wisdom we need to hear? What if providing compassion to our patients gives us a way to heal ourselves as much or more than the healing we provide?

I think about patients who’ve taught me courage. Families whose advocacy showed me what love looks like.

Being perfectly imperfect doesn’t prevent us from providing excellent care, it enables it. Our humanity, our vulnerability, our willingness to say “I don’t know but I’m here with you—just as you are and just as I am,” is what makes healing possible.