Emergency

• Knowledge, attitudes, practice
• Attitude to health
• Physician role

Most mornings I enter the building that houses my office through the back door. And most mornings my mind is elsewhere. I am preoccupied with thoughts of the day ahead—things to accomplish, people to see, meetings to attend, a lecture to give, deadlines to meet.

But this morning, as I cross through the trauma center garage where I park my car, on the ground floor beneath the helipad, a man approaches me, disheveled, emaciated, his eyes a little wild, I notice as he nears me, walking straight toward me, quickly. I try to seem nonchalant, but I'm no longer preoccupied with anything but my immediate surroundings. I'm focused. The man has my …