Through all the time I had known him, and through all the rounds and presentations, many voices were heard: my own, my senior resident, my attending, the ICU team, the consult teams, the family. But the softest voice, often overcome by dysphonia, came from the bed at the center of the room, and it needed to be amplified the most.

Richard T. Tran reflects on a patient’s request for a vanilla Ensure and learning that sometimes the greatest comforts can come from the simplest of interventions.

The essay read in this episode was published in the Teaching and Learning Moments column in the February 2024 issue of Academic Medicine. Read the essay at academicmedicine.org.