What's in a Name? It Anchors Part of Our Purpose in Medicine.

I have now been in a practice in a large academic setting for almost three years. After training in a large academic setting and practicing, for most of my career, in Tucson, another large urban setting and then setting up shop in a small town in norther Minnesota, I have observed a lot. I know what it is like in big places. I know what it is like in small places. I know unfamiliarity. I know anonymity. I know how it feels to be the 'new' person on the block. And I know the comfort of being someone 'everyone knows.'

Dale Carnegie liked to say, “A person’s name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” Is it really that simple? In fact, it is. Over the last three years I have said hundreds of new hellos and hundreds of goodbyes to trainees and fellow attendings.

So, what's in a name? What truly is packed into the one word we use to introduce ourselves and the word others use to introduce you? And the word that makes our head turn to pay attention when we hear our name called? It is nothing more than acknowledgment--acknowledgment you are here. You exist. You are present. And at that brief moment, you matter. Your presence matters. You are here.

We desperately need more community in medicine. We desperately need a lot of things, but at least this one small thing is the spark that can lead to a better connection on a very real level. When a new medical student shows up in the OR for the first time, and I do not know them, I approach them and ask them who they are. I don't introduce myself right away. I want to know who they are first. And then I tell them who I am. I tell them my first name--Matt. And then I explain I am the anesthesia attending and you are here to learn as much about the OR and patient care in the OR.

Some are a bit surprised. Why do I not introduce myself as Dr. Mazurek? I want to put them at ease as I ask them to put on the appropriate size gloves to assist with the induction of the anesthetic. They are there to learn. I am there to teach. And I am also there to let them know we are all human. And we have a name. We exist. We matter. And using our names in common spaces creates connections. And connections are what make us human. In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Words are finite organs of the infinite mind."

Hello, my name is Matt. I am here to help and what do you need? Imagine a world filled with people who greeted you like this. Imagine a hospital filled with people like this. Transformative power is simpler than we think.

“WHAT am I, after all, but a child, pleas’d with the sound of my own name? repeating it over and over; I stand apart to hear—it never tires me. To you, your name also; Did you think there was nothing but two or three pronunciations in the sound of your name?”

--Walt Whitman