The Corridor

A couple of weeks ago I came out of my consulting room to call my next patient. Further down the corridor I noticed a woman, who had just left a colleague’s room, standing quietly outside the closed door, her eyes unfocused, her hand on the door frame for support. My first instinct was to approach her and ask if she was all right. Had she been given bad news? I hesitated, realising she needed to take a private moment to collect her thoughts. Clearly, she had experienced a significant moment of some sort during her consultation. Then, after a brief pause, she straightened herself up, took a deep breath and, with me holding the door, left the surgery to return to her life outside.  I watched for a moment, before calling my next patient. Then the next, then the next.