The Heart of Hope

Something shifted after that conversation. It wasn't a dramatic overnight change, but it was there—the slightest flicker of fight in him again. He started pushing himself a little more, engaging in physical therapy instead of just going through the motions. He cracked a joke with the nurses.

Roz Agheli reflects on a patient who was kept alive by medicine but kept fighting because of hope.

This essay placed first in the 2025 Hope Babette Tang Humanism in Healthcare Essay Contest and was published in the December 2025 issue of Academic Medicine. Read the essay at academicmedicine.org.