A Love Letter to Healthcare Workers

Receiving gratitude feels good. That’s a very “no, duh” statement, I know.  But it does. Getting a quick “thanks” for holding a door open feels good. So does the gushing, overwhelming gratitude from the family of a patient I’ve cared for. Gratitude feels really good when I actually allow myself to receive it.

You know what I mean. The quick “thanks” is easy to dismiss as a reflex. And sometimes, the more emotional expressions of gratitude can feel like too much, too intense, too time-consuming, too much to process when you’ve got a to-do list a mile long and your phone is going off. But when we pause and truly let ourselves receive it? It’s one of the best feelings in the world.

So take a minute, all you healthcare workers—yes, you. Everyone who shows up in scrubs, in suits, in uniforms or badges. Everyone who clocks in to care, clean, organize, transport, schedule, communicate, educate, coordinate, advocate, and heal. Get yourself into a place to receive some serious gratitude.

A few weeks ago, my lovely spouse was incidentally diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma. That was my “load the boat” moment. Thankfully, as far as cancer diagnoses go, this one comes with a great prognosis. It looks like he’ll come through it with “just” a laparoscopic nephrectomy. That surgery was last week.

And now? I am overwhelmed with gratitude—for all of you.

I know how hard it is to be on your “A” game at work when your own life is pulling at you in a thousand directions. I know how tired you are: physically, mentally, emotionally. I know there are shifts when the only reason you show up is because a colleague’s counting on you. I know how frustrating it can be to answer the same question twelve times, to teach up and down the hierarchy, to navigate the tangled web of EMRs and hospital politics.

I know how hard it is to do this job. Let alone to do it with excellence, with care, and with compassion.

So when I say thank you, please know: I don’t say it lightly.

Thank you for your patience and kindness. Thank you for every sacrifice you've made to be here, for every skipped lunch, every extra hour, every late-night chart review. Thank you for the times you cleaned up a mess you didn’t make, organized a space you didn’t clutter, or stepped into a task that wasn’t yours because it needed to get done.

Thank you for showing up even when your body aches, when you’re nursing a headache or a pinched nerve (wondering, “How in the world did I hurt that?!”). Thank you for worrying about your own people but still showing up to care for someone else’s.

I know it’s not enough. But I want you to hear it anyway.

You give us our people back. You help make them whole again—and in doing so, you make us whole.

I am relieved. I am indebted. I am so very, very grateful.

From the absolute bottom of my heart, and with every ounce of emotion I can muster: Thank you.