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My name is Mathew. I’m a minimally invasive surgeon in the gynecology department at Penn, where I’m an associate professor.

I contracted coronavirus very early, and then I rapidly deteriorated during the first week. I had a weird cough. I was fearful that it was coronavirus, and it was. By Saturday the 14th of March, I was in the Pennsylvania Hospital emergency room to get a chest x-ray, thinking I was just going to stroll in there and stroll back out, and that quickly turned into the need to admit me. I stayed at Pennsylvania Hospital for a week. And I was on a variety of medicines, but my oxygen requirements were rapidly increasing.

On the 27th of March, they recommended that I be intubated, because they didn't feel like it was safe for me to continue the way I was. They started talking about transferring me to HUP, which I think was the right decision. So I was intubated. I remained in the intensive care unit for about 56 days and I remained on the ventilator for over 30 days. I was critically ill. I suffered a stroke early on.

For about two weeks while I was in the ICU at Penn, they noticed that I wasn't really moving my left arm. And they noticed that I wasn't moving the whole left side of my body. I lost part of my vision in the process, so I can't see peripherally out of my left.

I'm trying to be pragmatic and optimistic. It could have been catastrophic. I could have lost the use of my right arm. I could have developed aphasia, and I wouldn't be able to speak. I'm still communicative. I can still see the world. I'm going to take it for what it is. I can enjoy life.

During the process of me being under, I was aware of a lot. Much more than I thought I would have been. I was aware of bright lights, lots of sounds. And I kept thinking to myself, is this what the ICU is all about? This is torture. I thought I should write a book for students and for physicians to say the ICU is just loud. It's booming, it's bright lights, it’s strobe lights.

Of course it's not all that, but that's how I was interpreting it. I had ICU delirium. And I remember thinking, when I get out of this joint, and I talk to my patients, I won’t talk to them like this, I won't touch them like this. I won't be this way. I'm going to try to be a better physician.

I don't think there's anything they could have done differently. But as a physician, I wish someone had told me that your patient might be looking at you but be interpreting things very differently. The patient’s experience might be very different than your very own. So you may be speaking in a whisper, but your patient could be hearing a scream. And I think having that understanding as a treating provider, that the experience you're trying to give to a patient may not be the experience they're actually getting, and that there's a disconnect... I wish they would have been, “How do you feel, what do you need?"

And I don't think as a physician, we're empathetic to the plight of patients who are dependent upon us for their everything. Patients would come to me hemorrhaging, and I would try to reassure the patients "Don't worry, the blood doesn't bother me." They would look horrified that I was going to witness them in that vulnerable state.

But you know what? I didn't really get it. It's a vulnerability that you don't want others to see. One of the most traumatizing things for me as a patient was lying in my urine and feces. For a month I was vulnerable, and I hated it. All I could think of was "Somebody please come and clean me up."

Oftentimes during our rounds, we say, "We'll see you later." What does later mean? Tomorrow? Next week? I'll see you in the office? Patients lack the ability to know that "Oh, you'll probably be back tomorrow on rounds." Because that's what we really mean. And I remember thinking, "You know what, I'm gonna start saying what I really mean to my patients. I'll see you tomorrow morning”. I was an attentive physician, and I am an attentive physician, but I feel like I could have been more.

Through this whole process and my rehabilitation, I realized that I'm probably not going to be practicing medicine again -- which is very hard, because I identify as a surgeon. But I can't really use my hand the way I would normally. So, I don't think I'm going to be operating on anyone soon. And that's fine.

I'm going to reinvent myself. I don't know how, but I'm going to find a way to be resilient and to have a career at Penn. I may not operate, but I will do something that I find important and worthwhile. We all go into medicine to help others. And there's still that need to help. I think that helper gene is going to be there for me forever.

Thank God for Penn, and for saving me. Thank god for the team for putting their life at risk to take care of me. I look forward to practicing medicine again, if I can. And if I can, I think I'm going to do it very differently.

My name is Kia, and I’ve worked 24 years in medicine. I’ve worked at pretty much every hospital in the City, and in 2018 I came to Penn Medicine. I had a lot of love with my co- workers and managers and supervisors, and we actually got to support each other a lot.

And then right before COVID hit, I had this horrible diagnosis - stage five renal failure. I needed treatment immediately. I was basically given three months to live. I don't know if I was in denial, or if I simply wanted to continue my life is normal, but I didn't leave work. I was sick pretty much every day, but I stayed at work.

And in this process, it felt like I became more human every day. I thought that I was really in touch with people. I've been in human services. I get to deal with people on the daily, but hearing them cry and hearing their pain, it was my pain. So, they were me, and I was them. Each day their struggle for medications and doctors and appointments, and hanging on the phone just to wait for somebody to answer, became very significant for me, because it was all of the things that I was currently going through.

It got to the point of where my situation became really dire. I had to kind of announce it to my community, and my world, that this is what was going on. And last but not least tell my parents, which was my biggest hurdle. It felt like the end of my life. I said I would just take the cards as they lay. Everyone was like ‘You’re not leaving here, you have to stay here.” I went to the hospital finally - three weeks left if I didn't come in.

Dr. Kolasinski, the head of my practice, came to my aid. She asked me on my bed if it was okay if she referred my name to another doctor who was well known to me, world renowned and I was like” Little old me?” And I was thinking, ‘How would he have time for me’?

I was home maybe a few days out of the hospital, and I got a phone call. It was Dr. Merkel, who was asking me, how could he help me? He just wanted to know what he could do. And I was like, ‘You're taking time out your schedule for me?”

And so, I look at my journey as what I call ‘Return the Favor.’ I've been in health care. I’ve been a clinician. I’ve cried with patients, they've cried with me. I've stayed after hours to work with patients. I've stayed on the phone. I listened. And now it was my turn.

He referred me to a wonderful doctor whose name is Dr. Aggarwal. He called me day and night. Talked to me constantly, helped me. I mean literally staying on the phone with me for an hour and a half. Just to make sure I was okay.

I just spent eleven days in the hospital and I came home last Saturday.

And I just wanted to tell you about my angels, while I was there, who took time to stay with me and support me, even down to the cleaning lady. And this is what I call ‘Returning the Favor.’ I played music to lift my spirits every day, and the cleaning lady happened to come in and it was like her favorite song. And so she spent an extra 10 minutes with me every day, just to dance and listen to this song.

Two nurses, Sahar and Meagan, stayed after shift with me every day. When I came home from the hospital, I announced it to my whole community via social media and I asked them to thank Sahar, and to thank Megan. Sahar happens to now be my Facebook friend and she's received about 100 thank you’s. I have medical staff who became more than their title, more than the letters behind their name. They showed me love and it was reciprocated.

I think the biggest lesson that I'm continuing to learn is, every day we become more human. You never know what's going to happen. You have to kind of store up your treasures in heaven while you can. You don't know when you'll need those treasures to come back.

And people have become more human to me.

My name is Cyra, and I'm a registered nurse at Lancaster General Hospital.

I’d like to share a story about my first COVID patient, David.

At this point you didn’t know how the virus was being transmitted. It was obviously nerve wracking and we weren't really sure what to expect, how fast we were going to peak, and how everything was going to be. Everyone was being cautious and wearing N95’s and wearing PAPRs [powered air-purifying respirators] and all that. What if protective equipment actually didn’t protect you from it?

That day I came in, of course I was nervous and scared as to what to expect especially since David was very young. And I was surprised because he was in his 40s. You could tell that he's able to walk, he's able to do everything independently, but at that moment he couldn't do anything. And there is barely anything I could do. So a lot of the anxiety was knowing that I had to care for someone that I didn't know how to care for.

On our floor the nurses drove everything. We didn't have housekeepers, we didn't have aides, we didn't have respiratory therapists or anyone. So basically we were trained to do everything our patients would need.

Just the garbing part of our PPE [personal protective equipment] was very nerve wracking already. The hospital was pretty strict about donning and doffing. I had to make sure that I was going to be prepared for it, and I was going to be protected.

The first time I actually went in his room I spent about an hour and a half in there, you know making sure he was OK, giving him his tray for food, cleaning his room making sure he showered and all that. So while he was washing up, I was wiping down his room, and making sure it was nice and clean and tidy. And I got to know my patient.

I feel like at that moment my patient also had more anxiety than me. His family wasn't there. No one is allowed to visit. You feel very isolated in a room and you're not sure about what's going on, because you just see it on TV and it's happening to you.

I just figured my job would be to make him comfortable and make sure that he knows that there are people around him, and that we’re there to help them. There is no one else on our floor, there was no one else he could talk to. I was the only person coming into his room besides one other doctor who was there 10 minutes once a day. We built our relationship on what we were both facing.

That day that he left, I actually wasn't his nurse. but I saw him roll out of our unit and I realized that he couldn't even recognize me having my PPE on. And that didn't make any difference to how I felt, because I know that I had made a difference in his life, and he had made a difference in mine.

With this pandemic that we're dealing with, with everything going on, it's the relationships that will help us get through.

My name is Ara. I am a physician at Penn, and I work in Otolaryngology.

About 10 days ago, after finishing about six hours of surgery with my nurses and my chief resident, I was notified that I had been exposed to a colleague who had tested positive for Covid-19. I was considered in the high-risk group to potentially get infected. I needed to immediately proceed into quarantine status. I changed, I packed up what little I bring into the hospital, and I walked out of the hospital on to the front circle. And I looked at the street in a very different way than I normally do.

So I am getting ready to call my wife and tell her what I have just heard, and I don't want to make this call. My wife is pregnant, she is 3 weeks away from delivering. Quite honestly I am afraid she might be infected, or the baby, or the child we have. And then on top of that, I don't want to miss the delivery. So it was one of the hardest calls I had to make.

I had settled in my head that I was going to the hotel. My phone was dying, and in some ways I felt like I was all alone. I think I really was. There was a list of little things I had to solve. They were all made more complicated by the fact that I wasn't going to get to go home and give little Ara a hug and my wife a kiss.

I remember I was crossing the Walnut Street Bridge feeling really lonely. It felt really long and slow. I thought I would feel better if I planned, so I planned a little what I would maybe do when I got to the hotel, and how I would spend my days. It didn't really feel like I was in charge of much of anything at that moment, besides staying away from everybody.

I walked out of the hotel to pick up my bag from my wife, and you could tell she wanted to hug me. And I go, “you can’t hug me.” And she goes, “I hugged you this morning.” And I go, “yeah, but now it’s different.” She goes, “it’s not really different.” And I go, “it feels different.” “I feel like I can’t hug you because I don’t know what's going to happen next. So trust me, and don't hug me.”

It was a long nine days. But fortunately, I didn’t get sick. I felt good when I had my routine. I felt good when I was able to do a virtual clinic, and when I made my bed, and folded my clothes, and when I got to see my family over the FaceTime, and watch videos of my life at home unfolding without me. Because it was the next best thing to being there.

As I envisioned going back into the society that I just left, the hardest thing for me to imagine was how to package my two biggest fears. Can I keep my family safe, can I be healthy for them? And then the fear that I would be unable to help others. This incredible urge to be present at the hospital, ¬¬helping take care of people that are in need, but also being there as a colleague who supports other colleagues in what we do.

Almost everybody has the chance of getting sick. I realized that I'm one of hundreds already, and these conversations, these inner fugues are something that almost everybody is going to feel. You have to put it on the table that you're willing to go back and do what you love, that you care about, that you're committed to. For me, I realized that all of those two or three circles -- you, your family, your job, your commitment -- they all belong together, especially now. They really belong together.

To learn more about Brad Aronson and his book “Human Kind: Changing the World One Small Act At a Time,” visit: www.bradaronson.com/humankind-book/

My name is Brad, and I was introduced to Penn Medicine the way most people are, with a bad diagnosis.

My wife was diagnosed with leukemia, and we were told that she would need two and a half years of treatment. You immediately go to the hospital for a month, and then, if all goes well, and in that month you're in remission, you then get to go home. But you’re back every single day, at other points 4 days a week. We got to spend more time than most people at Penn.

We really appreciated the culture and the people. And it starts from the second you get there. When you go for your treatment you pull into the parking lot. All the people working are so friendly and kind. And it just makes you breathe easier.

And then you get to the elevators. And we always parked on the same floor. The woman was so nice, she would talk to us, learned about our son Jack. It was just part of that friendliness that carried through and it made a huge difference.

I cannot say enough praise about the nurses. We spent a lot of time with them. They must see dozens of patients a week, but every patient is an individual. They're not just treating you, they see you as a person, and they have conversations. And those conversations really matter. I remember one time, when we were talking to one of the nurses, Abby, and we were telling her about our son's obsession with baseball. Jack loves the Phillies, he has five different Philly shirts that look the same. And I remember one time we got a call at home, and it was Abby. I was at first a little bit nervous, like why is a nurse calling us at home. And she said, I just wanted to let you know that my boyfriend has season tickets to the Phillies, and he has extra tickets tonight. And we thought maybe you’d want to take your son to the game. And that was awesome.

I remember another nurse, Sharon. When I was in the waiting room, I saw a woman who was having trouble walking. And Sharon walked up to her, and didn't say, “Can I help you walk, can I offer assistance?” She said, “Can I walk with you?”

And then kind of grabbed this woman’s arm, and the woman was happy, and they were walking along. Itt was such a friendly way for her to offer help. And there was Claire, who was hilarious, and you know, told us the story of accidentally basting her Thanksgiving turkey in Pine-Sol. Cause she had done a late-night shift and didn’t realize what she was doing, and she woke up and said, “oh my goodness!”
You don’t laugh that much when you are in treatment, it’s kind of tough. I see my wife feeling really bad, and you know, Claire could always get us to laugh.

And one thing I also remember is, so we’re going through this long treatment, and the nurses are suggesting that Mia and I go to this conference for young cancer patients and their caregivers. When we were there, a patient advocate spoke who had been through the same treatment as Mia. This woman said, if you are going through two and a half years of treatment, you need to come up with projects. A project will distract you, a project will give you focus, and help you get through this. Mia decides she's going to write in a journal. Our son Jack, who was about five and a half at the time, decided his project was going to be playing 200 days of Wiffle ball in a row. And my project was, I was going to write a book about small acts of kindness that transform people's lives.

It started with the acts of kindness when Mia was going through treatment, from the people at Penn, from our friends, from our family members, from strangers. Acts of kindness that got us through that tough time. I started writing other people's stories. Stories about a small act of kindness that helped save a life, and then stories about the butterfly effect of an act of kindness.

The treatment was two and a half years, and I don't remember a ton about it, which is probably a good thing. But I remember those little actions that give you the strength to carry through.

When Mia began treatment, I thought of myself as the primary caregiver who’s got to make sure everything works. What I quickly learned is that caregiving takes a village. It was everyone who was playing a part, it was our family, it was our friends, it was our physician, it was the nurses, it was the parking attendants. Everyone helped with that experience, and every bit of their help added to our strength to get through it.

For all of you out there who helped us, and there are many, many of you, thank you.

My name is Peter Matthews. About 2 years ago, my life was saved through a liver transplant. I got really sick really quickly, and I was told I didn’t have that much time. This was in September. I was told Thanksgiving may be out of my range. The only way I was gonna make it was if I got a transplant.

I had to trust the people at Penn. I just did not think they’d let me die. And my family and I waited until we got news that there was an organ available. We got our hopes up. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out.

Then one day after a few weeks as I floated in and out, I saw someone before me. I couldn’t make out a face, and then I heard a soft voice and realized it was a young man.

And I could make out an outstretched hand, and somehow he knew I was an Aussie, and he said to me “Here mate, this is for you.” To this day, I’m certain I heard his voice. Later that day, the medical team told me that a liver was available. Then, a few weeks later, I asked my team about the donor and I was told that identities are withheld. And I said “can you tell me if it was a young man?” Yes it was. From there, everything moved really quickly. I had the transplant not long after that. My life changed forever.

I’m trying to live a life of gratitude and purpose. I’m trying to make my life count for something. I’m also trying to live for the kid because I really do think I’m living for two people.

When I feel joy at just breathing, I struggle with survivor’s guilt. I’ve learned that this is a real, palpable thing, that’s experienced by many organ recipients. My guilt has two sources. First for the young man. For me to be speaking to you, he had to lose his life. Second, because I was transplanted ahead of so many others, so many who’d been waiting for a long time.

I think the only way I’ve been able to deal with it is to have a purpose in my life. I sometimes feel the young man in me. He’s close to me. He’s gonna grow old with me. I hear my breath going in and out. I think that’s when he talks to me. I swear I feel him just under my rib cage; I get a little something, and he is trying to get my attention. And then some days when I have a little problem I’m trying to fix, I say “Kid, what are we going to do about this?”

It’s really hard to express how I feel connected to this young man. I don’t know much about him. I think about the life he lost. All I can do with my second life is live it in a way that would make him proud.

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My name is Emily. My father has had two distinct lives. One pre-liver transplant and one post. Since October of 2017 my father’s purpose, his life goal, has distinctly changed. He believes in paying it forward, and honoring his young donor’s life, and not taking one single second or mundane detail in his life for granted.

He has become a champion for organ donation, for giving away what you have but no longer need. I take great comfort in knowing that however long the rest of his life may be, I will know that he was happy, and he was fulfilled, and he had a life full of gratitude and was indebted to a young man that we will never know.

As a second year resident in the ICU I came to encounter and care for one of the most memorable patients in my residency. She was an elderly woman her terrible kidney disease and need for dialysis had irreparably laid waste to her coronary arteries. She was in shock and she was just tenuously surviving on a device called an intra-aortic balloon pump. It was placed inside through an artery in her leg and working in synchrony with her heartbeat to reduce the strain on her heart. She was a genuine woman who laughed loudly and often, we developed a rapport quickly. She was the first person I checked on every morning and the last person I said bye to every night. She was always surrounded by her loving family, telling jokes and recalling life stories late into the night. If you met her you would never had guessed she was one of the sickest patients in the entire unit.

Days dragged by before anyone discussed her prognosis, it was apparent to all of us that she was rapidly approaching the end of her life. We asked her how did she envision this chapter? She confided that being on this device was not the way that she wanted to spend her final days. Her room was never silent, the pump was audibly laboring day and night. Because it was placed in her leg, it prevented her from sitting up, eating her favorite foods, and holding her loved ones. She wanted it out. The team acknowledged her wishes but said to her solemnly, we want you to understand if the pump comes out, there is a not so small chance that your heart could arrest. She remained silent for a moment, then nodded. She was willing to take her chances.

After avoiding her room for hours I final mustered enough resolve to walk into her room. She greeted me with her usual smile, as I laid out the supplies I explained to her exactly what I would do. It helped calm my nerves, as much as it did hers. And finally when I told her I was ready, she remained silent. I looked up to find her in tears. So I held her hand and with the other I grabbed her hand as she reached up and gently placed it on my face. She said to me in that moment “I’m so scared, Jason I’m so scared." I told her it was okay to be scared. She nodded and closed her eyes.

For the first time in days there was silence in the room. The drumming sound of the balloon pump had stopped. I held firm pressure where it had exited to stop the bleeding. I told her I would need to do so for an hour.

The initial moments were filled with a palpable apprehension of what I feared would be imminent death. I was terrified she would pass away right before my eyes, from the very action I had just performed. Her heart would now have to pick up the extra work. We remained motionless for the first ten minutes.

Then suddenly the heavy air was pierced by a beautiful, transcendent melody. Her two sisters had begun to play gospel songs from their phones, the ones they had grown up listening to and singing. Immediately, the tense lines began to fade away from her face, and her entire body relaxed. She began to sing, at first quietly, but more passionately with each passing minute. Her two sisters joined in, surrounding us in their warm voices. They looked at each other and laughed. We listened to more than ten songs together that afternoon. She sang as many words as she could remember in joy, without chest pain, shortness of breath, arrythmia or death.

As we neared the end of the hour, they stopped singing and began to pray out loud. They prayed for her heart. They prayed for her soul. They prayed for those whom she had touched with her presence during her life, and those who had touched her. They prayed for her doctors and nurses. They prayed for my hands that were controlling her bleeding.

In more ways than physically I felt connected to her that spiritual afternoon. For the first time in my life, I, too, closed my eyes and prayed for her to thrive and to be at peace for the remainder of her life. Then I gently lifted my hands from her leg which was now dry and placed a clean dressing, signifying a closure to what had been a heavy, yet heartfelt hour. She left the ICU a few days later. And the following day she passed away.

Twelve years ago, my husband had surgery for oral cancer. His incision started behind his right ear, arced down along his neck under his jaw, and ended under his chin. It was a long surgery, about 9 hours, and I remember that night when I saw him for the first time, around 11 o’clock, I remember the incision to me looked pretty messy. And I was surprised by that. I was expecting it to be neat and tidy and clean, and it actually was very bumpy, pulpy, and looked like ground meat.

My husband was not interested in seeing his reflection until about five days later. He requested that the nurse bring him a mirror. Now this surgery meant that my husband had a tracheostomy and a tube in his nose for nutrition, so he was not able to speak, and communicated to me by writing down what he needed or wanted. So the nurse brings the mirror to him, and she says “Are you ready?” And he shakes his head yes. He holds up the mirror, and when he saw his reflection, his whole face, his countenance, completely dropped. And I panicked, because my instinct was, how am I going to fix this? How can I make him feel better? I didn't know what to say, I didn't know what to do. But he was horrified by his reflection. And he took a pen, wrote down on a piece of paper, very angrily, “I look like a freak!” And it broke my heart. The nurse saw this and she said “You're right, it doesn't look good today. But every day it's going to look better and better.”

And I was so appreciative that she stepped in when she did, because she saved me from having to come up with something to say to my husband to make him feel better. And what impressed me was she told him the truth. She recognized that he saw that it wasn't what he expected, that it looked bad.

Years later, my husband still looks in the mirror and will say to himself, “I look like a freak.” His face has completely changed from what it was prior to these surgeries. And instead of saying, “No, you look fine,” I say “Clark it's not the same face you had, but it's a good face.” So what does it mean to say he has a good face? I understand that, in that moment, he's looking in the mirror to discern his own worth. But he's also looking into my face to see reflected back what I see.

Today, 12 years later, as his spouse and caregiver, my role is far more elusive. I no longer change bandages and perform trach care. Now, I reflect back but I see you when I look at his good face. His compassion, courage, and fortitude in living and loving through these life-changing experiences. And he also sees I embrace him as he is.

This summer I walked into the radiology department at Penn Medicine Radnor for an MRI. The nurses were finishing up with another patient and so there was nobody out in the waiting area.

As I was waiting, I saw the most beautiful sign on the check-in desk and it said “A chaperone may be requested for certain physical exams.” The reason this meant so much to me is because I am the first known victim of former Olympic gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar. I was abused for seventeen years starting at the age of eight years old. My abuse took place in another academic medical institution and Larry was a doctor who should've been protecting us and healing us, but that institution failed us. Some of my sister survivors today have panic attacks at the mere thought of going into a doctor’s office and others won't have children because they are unable to see an OB.

Often when we think about listening, we think about conversations with other people, but to me this sign meant that Penn Medicine was listening. No one knows who is walking through the door at the doctor's office. And no one would've known that night that they had someone who had been abused as a child. But that sign made me feel safe, it made me feel heard, and it made me feel cared about.

Today I’m an activist and I’m a lawyer representing survivors of sexual abuse and I work day and night trying to change the protocol at institutions who are not doing it right. These institutions approach this issue of safety reactively, when something comes up or there's a problem. But this was the first time that I walked into a doctor's office that was being proactive, and was doing it the right way, just for the sake of doing it the right way.

I have a four year old daughter. I think a lot about the life I’ve lived and how institutions can and hopefully will change in order to do it better. I think a lot about the world in which she’s growing up. I’m so thankful that my daughter’s generation and anyone vulnerable will get a different kind of care than what I’ve experienced. And while it was just a sign, it gave me a lot of hope.