What I Saw in the Hospital… and Why It Changed How I See Our Work

There’s a feeling I haven’t been able to shake. It’s settled in, heavy and real, and I need to share it with you.

It started with a piece in The Atlantic. I’m sure you’ve heard the stories: patients waiting days in the emergency room, camped out on stretchers in hallways, tucked away in makeshift spaces because every bed is full. They call it “emergency department boarding.” It’s a clinical term for an increasingly common reality.

But as I read, it wasn’t just a “news story” to me.

I have lived it.

When Care Loses Its Dignity

I’ve been the person examined in a hallway. Not in the privacy of a room, not behind a closed door or even a curtain. In a hallway. With people walking by families, staff, complete strangers. You try so hard to focus, to answer the nurse’s questions, but you’re agonizingly aware of everything around you. The noise. The movement. The deep, unsettling feeling that something incredibly personal is happening in a very public space. You don’t feel like a person; you feel like a problem to be moved. You just want it to be over.

And then there was my mom. She’s 91.

We spent a long night together in an emergency room with no chairs. Nothing to sit on. Not even for a moment. So I stood, shifting my weight, leaning against the wall, trying to find some semblance of rest without ever actually resting, just keeping vigil.  I got tired and lay on the floor, which wasn’t thought out, because the floor was covered with filth from the last visitor, but I was so tired.

For hours at a time, we saw no one. Not a single nurse.

It wasn’t because they didn’t care. It was because they couldn’t keep up. You could feel the burnout and exhaustion radiating through the ward.

This wasn’t just one instance: this is one of many with my mom.

This Is Bigger Than One Bad Night

My experience isn’t unique. The Atlantic piece confirmed what so many of us are starting to see, hear, and feel. Our medical system is at its breaking point.

Patients aren’t just waiting for care; they are waiting for space. They have been technically admitted, yet they remain stuck in the ER—sometimes for 24 hours, sometimes longer.

This isn’t about bad people. It’s about a system that was built for a different world, and it is crumbling under the weight of what it’s now being asked to carry. In these long waits, care becomes fractured. No one is fully, completely “owning” the patient’s journey from arrival to discharge. And the environment itself—the constant lights, the beeping, the hard floors, the lack of privacy—is actively hostile to healing.

The Missing Piece No One Talks About

This is what struck me the most:

Our medical system is a marvel of intervention. It is truly astonishing at procedures, at diagnostics, at acute, immediate care. If you are in a crisis, it is where you want to be.

But it is not designed for…well, for the human part.

It’s not designed for ongoing, gentle guidance. For emotional support when you are terrified. For navigating the terrifying fog of uncertainty. For simply being present during the long, uncomfortable, unclear moments.

And that is where people suffer the most. Not usually in the procedure itself, but in everything that surrounds it. The before. The after. The waiting.

Where We Come In

This is where I saw our work, as coaches and practitioners, with profound new clarity.

We are not, and will never be, a replacement for medical care. But we are absolutely necessary to fill in the enormous, aching gaps.

We are the ones who can help people:

• Catch issues earlier, before they spiral into an emergency.

• Understand their own bodies, so they aren’t just receiving a diagnosis but comprehending it.

• Find the right language and know the critical questions to ask their doctors.

• Feel seen, heard, and supported, so they know they are not facing the unknown alone.

• Move through life-changing transitions with less fear and more peace.

And sometimes, our work is simply to be there. To sit with someone in their discomfort. To not try to “fix” it immediately, but to acknowledge it. That matters so much more than we give it credit for.

A Different Kind of Care

My story is not rare. My mom’s story is not rare. It is happening every day, in many hospitals. This is not a crisis we can solve overnight.

But there is so much we can do.

We can prepare people. We can hold them up. We can give them the tools, the language, and the confidence they need before they ever have to walk through those sliding doors. We can help them recover, both physically and emotionally, and make sense of what just happened to them after they leave.

We can be the steady, calm presence in a world that feels rushed and terrifyingly uncertain.

A Question Worth Asking

I want to ask you to really sit with this. I want you to feel it, not just think about it.

If you are a coach, a therapist, a practitioner, any kind of healer:

Where could you support someone before, during, or after a moment like this?

Because that is not just meaningful work. It is absolutely necessary. It is the missing thread that knits people back together. And right now, it is needed more than ever.

If you’re ready to build something that truly meets people exactly where they are, not just where the system has space for them, then this is your moment. This is what you were called to do.

Read the article – A Barbaric Problem in American Hospitals is Only Getting Bigger, The Atlantic  https://www.theatlantic.com/health/2026/04/emergency-department-boarding-crisis

FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA