The Chart

I’m so proud that my son Patrick is an RN working in the Texas Medical Center.  It’s a hard, tough job working 12-hour shifts and dealing with rude and sometimes demented patients as well as doctors.

I was recently admitted, or was that committed to that same old but severely remodeled institution of higher healing.  He was off duty but stayed right there with me anyway, calm and making sure everything was right and that his seventy plus year Ol’Man was comfortable. 

To pass the hours between needles and dreams, I told him my story of a time long ago, when I was working as a lowly laboratory chart clerk part-time while in high school.

I explained to my son that there where no personal computers back then, all the lab results where hand written on small pieces of self adhesive paper and it was the job of the chart clerk to take all of those reports to all of the nurses stations, and stick those little slips of paper that would give those attending to the patient’s salvation and recovery the specific measure of the progress or the lack there of into each patient’s cold hard metal clipboard and folder combination, aka The Chart.

I will never forget the day I had to post reports in a Mr. Smith’s chart (not his real name - HEPA rules) and I couldn’t find it.  I asked the nurse who instructed that the chart was in his room, and to go there and post his results.  When I knocked on the door, there was no answer, only silence, so I gently pushed the door open and felt more than saw the darkness and chill in this chamber, not like the others, which are often warm and filled with light and the soft hum of activity from people recuperating from illness or injury and those caring for their wants and needs.

As I entered there was Mr. Smith tightly wrapped from head to toe in a blanket laying rather stiffly on his back in the middle of his bed. I also observed that his chart was laying very prominently on his chest, like a book closed for the last time.  His chest did not move — no rise, no fall — and I understood then that he had already gone on ahead, waiting only for the undertaker’s attention.

I quietly posted my reports and gently placed the file back where I found it, and softly closed the door behind me as I exited the room.  I don’t know why I was so quiet, maybe I didn’t want to disturb the peace he had finally found.

My lab reports were too late to help Mr. Smith, if at all.  Today, my son informs me that there is no need for chart clerks in a modern hospital, when the tests are completed, they are nearly instantly posted in the patient’s file electronically, except hemoglobin levels, which still seem to take their time, as if it remembers what it is to be human.  And I think that’s right, in a way.  Some things should still take their time.

As we seniors grow older and our human frailties start to manifest theirselves it is very probable that we may we find ourselves once more in the patient’s bed, we would do well to remember that those who tend us — these nurses, these sons and daughters of mercy — are not servants but the quiet keepers of our remaining strength. Treat them kindly. Listen. Say thank you. A small word, perhaps, but one that carries great weight in the tired heart of the healer.

J. Michael Boland

© November 11, 2025