Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from Bird’s Eye View: Stories of a Life Lived in Health Care by Sue Robins.

I remember every single act of kindness I’ve encountered in health settings over the past years. The images are embedded in my head like bright glowing lights. I revisit them often to comfort me in times of distress and to rekindle hope in health care when my hope begins to wane.

At 4 a.m., when I am dozing in the chair beside my son Aaron in the emergency room, I am grateful for the nurse who covered me up with a warm blanket. The warm blankets are my symbol for kindnesses in health care and they mean the world to me.

There are so many ways to share simple acts of kindness, even in the public spaces in hospitals. I can think of the senior administrator who always lets patients and families in and out of the elevators first; the nurse who welcomes patients or families to bump in front of her in the coffee line-up; people who make eye contact and smile at patients in the hallway, comment on cute babies in elevators, and hold doors open for strollers and wheelchairs; any staff member or student who take the time to help a lost patient or family.

Even better, the staff who escort lost folks directly to their destination in the hospital.

If every staff member and student committed to doing one simple act of kindness every single day for a patient or family member in the hospital corridors and lobbies, imagine what kind of environment would be created in what is often a rushed, stressful and confusing place.

Really, anybody working in a health care setting – parking lot attendants, cafeteria cashiers, receptionists, clinicians – has these choices to make in every encounter with a patient, a dozen times a day: do they respond neutrally because they are hiding behind professionalism? Do they respond with cruelness to assert their power over the vulnerable patient? Or they do respond as a healer, with demonstrated compassion for those people they signed up to serve? Demonstrated compassion translates into acts of kindness.

One day, the occupational therapist who supported Aaron when he was a toddler looked me in the eye and unexpectedly said, “You are doing a great job as Aaron’s mom.” I responded to her sentiment by bursting into grateful tears.

Then there was the OR nurse who ushered me out the door after Aaron was anesthetized for surgery. She put her hand on my shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, we will take very good care of him for you.

A mammogram technologist stroked my arm when I was administered the sharp freezing for my breast biopsy. Later, she tenderly brushed my hair when it fell into my face, causing instant tears to well up in my eyes and slowly drip onto the green hospital pillow.

Our family doctor once called me out of the blue just to see how Aaron was doing when he was going through a rough spell. This seems like a little thing, but it was a big thing to me.

When Aaron was hospitalized with pneumonia, he was lucky enough to have an exceptional student nurse assigned to his care. She joked with him, high-fived him and patiently sat with him on his bed while he took his inhaler meds. I later took the time to write a thank you note to her and send a copy to her instructor. Even if the system doesn’t reward kindnesses, it doesn’t mean that we can’t recognize and acknowledge tender care.

During Aaron’s hospital stay, the pediatric resident wrote his name on the white board in the room so we wouldn’t feel foolish if we forgot his name. A child life volunteer took the time to gown up to come in Aaron’s isolation room to fix his video console. An aide stayed with my sleeping boy early one morning so I could run down to get a desperately needed cup of coffee. The nurse on the night shift tiptoed about with a flashlight, minimizing disturbances while making rounds.

None of this is counted by the hospital funders, but all of it matters to me.

A kind manner often does not take more time and it is also free. This is my call to the return of the old-fashioned notion of bedside manner.

The simple stuff matters, every single time. Kindness is not about being nice. It is the demonstration of compassion that is at the core of patient and family centred care.

We all are softened by compassion. It rubs out the hard edges in this messed-up beautiful world. Give us your kindnesses, in any form they take. They are salve for my wounds, if only for a moment.

About the Author: Sue Robins is a Vancouver-based author, speaker and health care advocate. Her lived experience includes caregiving, as her youngest son Aaron has Down syndrome. She gained the patient perspective in oncology with a breast cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatment.

Sue’s first book, Bird’s Eye View is a book about patient experience. Her second book, Ducks in a Row, is about reimagining the health care system through compassion, storytelling and partnering with patients.

Sue has held family leadership positions with the B.C. Children’s Hospital and the Stollery Children’s Hospital. Sue is currently a member of Canadian Medical Association’s Patient Voice. In her day job, she is the senior partner with Bird Comm, a creative health communications company.