I smell like someone who tried unsuccessfully to wash the stink of latex gloves off his hands with bright pink antimicrobial soap in an Emergency Room sometime after midnight. I think it is roughly the scent you would get if you were watching a large grove of rubber trees burn down, and to cover up the acrid odor of thick black smoke, you shoved alcohol-soaked cotton balls up your nose.

An acquaintance's son was recently involved in a car accident that has left serious doubts about his survival. I was fascinated to note that the family has since put up a website with regular updates on his condition, along with photos taken of him in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. Reaction among people I know has been varied; some view this an amazing new means of keeping everyone up to date, but others find it gruesome. The family has entreated visitors to pray for their son, and now report that they feel the prayers have made a difference in his progress.

My friend Susan told me that a study found that doctors who pray for their patients have a higher survival rate than those who do not. I wonder if I should begin praying for my own patients. There is the matter of my own disbelief -- would this create an obstacle to the beneficial effects?

Night shift. The patient had attained a three-digit age. She was in substantial pain, but quite lucid and sharp. She was relatively quiet once we got her in the back of the ambulance. Maybe knowing she was on the way to the hospital calmed her down, or maybe she was just then realizing the seriousness of the situation. When I took her blood pressure, her hands nervously grasped my arm and held on. As I slid the cuff off she grabbed my free hand and held it, squeezing tightly whenever the rig bounced through potholes.

I was working under another EMT whom I'd never met before, and I watched furtively to see if she would react to this show of comforting. Some of the more hardened cynical types would doubtless perceive holding a patient's hand as being on the bleeding-heart softie side, a liability in times of trouble. I almost never spontaneously offer physical comfort, but I'll respond when someone reaches for it and I have a hand free. I just assume that patients, like me, would rather not be pawed by some hypersympathetic stranger in a uniform. I want to comfort them. I want to fix them, but I know the latter is such an impossibility that the former seems perilously inadequate.

The air conditioner in the unit was broken, and temperatures in the ambulance rapidly approached and exceeded sweltering. Our patient, who had complained of feeling cold, was perfectly comfortable. Her attendants, on the other hand, were turning into very unpleasant looking people. To put it delicately, I am not the kind of person who remains fresh and dry in hot climates, but the other EMT was displaying a level of sweatiness that even I found impressive. It was a struggle to avoid dripping on our patient.

The centenarian on the cot said something that was difficult to discern over the noise of the siren. "What?" my fellow soggy EMT asked her.

"Strong," the patient said again.

"Frogs?" the EMT said.

"Strong." She held up her hand, which was currently squeezing all the blood out of mine. "It helps," she said.

I experienced a momentary flash of irrational embarrassment at being caught so visibly comforting a patient. It was quickly followed by a surge of pride. It wasn't a prayer, but it was a tentative step towards some kind of believing.