By Nicole Dhanraj
When you work in healthcare long enough, certain things start to feel routine. Procedures become familiar. Risks feel manageable. You know what’s safe, what’s common and what’s done every single day.
Patients don’t always experience it that way.
Recently, my husband went in for surgery. In a conversation beforehand, he said something that made me laugh at first. “You know, long ago they used to say not many people came back from anesthesia.”
I chuckled and said, “Yeah, that was long ago.” and responded the way many of us would. I told him that anesthesia today is used all the time, that it’s closely monitored, and that it’s very safe.
It caught my attention. I asked him if he was nervous, and he said yes. I reassured him that honestly everything would be fine. And, I believed that reassurance completely.
But after surgery, when he said, “I made it back,” it stopped me.
That comment wasn’t about the outcome. It was about what he had been carrying with him the entire time.
In healthcare, we often assume that once we explain the science, fear will fade. Sometimes it does. But sometimes fear isn’t rooted in a lack of information, it’s rooted in stories. Things people have heard growing up. Family experiences. Cultural beliefs. Old warnings that linger long after medicine has changed.
For clinicians, anesthesia is routine. For patients, it can feel like handing over control. And those fears don’t always show up as clear questions. They show up sideways in a comment, a joke or a passing remark we might easily brush past if we’re not listening closely.
What this experience reminded me is that even when we ask, “Are you nervous?” and even when we reassure patients appropriately, that underlying fear doesn’t always disappear. Trust and fear can exist at the same time.
This isn’t about patients believing myths. It’s about recognizing that people bring beliefs and stories into healthcare spaces whether we ask about them or not. And if we don’t make room for those conversations, we may never hear what’s really sitting underneath the surface.
Sometimes it only takes a gentle follow-up to open the door:
- “Have you heard anything about this procedure that stuck with you?”
- “Are there stories you’ve been carrying into this?”
- “Is there anything about this that’s been worrying you, even if it’s hard to explain?”
These questions don’t slow care down. They help us connect with patients in a more honest way.
Patients don’t walk into procedures as blank slates. They walk in with history, belief and fear already in place. When we learn to listen for those quiet cues, we meet patients where they actually are not just where we assume they should be.
What stayed with me most is that this came from someone I know well and someone I talk to about healthcare all the time.
It was a reminder of how easy it is to overlook the deeper meaning behind what sounds like a simple comment, even when we think we’re listening.
Nicole Dhanraj, Ph.D., SHRM-SCP, PMP, GPHR, CPSS, CRA, R.T(R)(CT)(MR), is an experienced imaging director.
