The concept of ‘caring’ in medicine can be metaphorically likened to actively choosing to walk the patient home. 

However ‘home’ in this setting refers to the place the patient calls home – Caring is not about walking the patient to the place that the doctor calls home.  

This is fundamentally the problem with modern day medical care.  We try and walk the patient to ‘our home’ and not to ‘their’ home. Our home is ring-fenced by guidelines and protocols and pathways and where we feel safe and comfortable. That is not necessarily where the patient wants to be. 

True caring is about walking past our own homes, no matter how uncomfortable and inconvenient it feels, and walking  with the patient to the place they want to reach. The place that they call home. 

This is the privilege of our duties. The ability to walk patients home – the ability to set them free and every time we do so, we also set ourselves free.