As an intern at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montréal, I began sketching patients and noting snippets of our conversations. I did this as a way to spend a few extra moments with patients and to focus more closely on their expressions. These drawings bring back the essence of an encounter, a detail of personality and the fragmentary clues that patients are giving to the doctor about their experience with illness. I have continued to sketch, and I awaken each day with the wonderful faces of patients in my mind and their poignant or humorous stories.
![Notes of the article text, with a sketch of an older female patient with glasses and earrings.](https://www.cmaj.ca/content/cmaj/190/23/E722/F1.medium.gif)
Manager of the coin vault, he’s supposed to weigh me as quarters, but last time he weighed me as dimes. And that’s how much I’m worth in dimes: $8900. I was worth $10 200. I depreciated.
![Notes of the article text, with a sketch of an older female patient, in a headscarf.](https://www.cmaj.ca/content/cmaj/190/23/E722/F2.medium.gif)
My mother been scarin’ me. Stroke at the brain. Said she read a girl wi’ a headache went to sleep and din’t wake up.
![Notes of the article text, with a sketch of an older female patient with glasses, curly hair and a concerned expression.](https://www.cmaj.ca/content/cmaj/190/23/E722/F3.medium.gif)
Why do you say you think you might die soon? Well, to please him for one thing. Of course, I blame my son for most of the things that go wrong ... Think you’re in jail? Well, it’s akin to it ... Staring at the ceiling and out the window ... Then I went into the hospital and had a radium transplant in my bowels. I rather like it, because when you’re constipated it’s hell. So you’re losing urine ‘cause your sphincter isn’t functioning? Not too bad. I can pucker.
![Notes of the article text, with a sketch of an older female patient, frowning.](https://www.cmaj.ca/content/cmaj/190/23/E722/F4.medium.gif)
Life’s good, but I’m sick. I’m sick of sick.
![Notes of the article text, with a sketch of an older female patient, in a headscarf, glasses, frowning.](https://www.cmaj.ca/content/cmaj/190/23/E722/F5.medium.gif)
Worriation. I’m older than I look ‘cause I worried myself to death all my life. Onliest thing I do is come to the doctor and go to church.
Footnotes
This article has been peer reviewed.
These sketches and notes were made more than three decades ago.