In this narrative, Dr. Calvin Santiago, who was a medical student at Queen’s University at the time, describes an encounter with a patient who was at peace with stopping his treatment. The essay won the 2017 Undergraduate Narrative Award for Palliative Medicine. Dr. Santiago is now a first-year neurology resident at the University of Toronto.He wrote a Humanities Encounters article published in CMAJ called "Three."To read the article: www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.190091-----------------------------------Music: Earnest by Kevin MacLeod, YouTube audio library-----------------------------------For more stories like this one, get your copy of CMAJ’s Encounters Book. This anthology of prose and poetry of some 100 Canadian authors including Drs. David Goldbloom, Shane Neilson, Allan Peterkin and Monica Kidd, has been specially curated and includes a study guide. shop.cma.ca/products/encounters-----------------------------------Subscribe to CMAJ Podcasts on Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Overcast, Instacast, or your favourite app. You can also follow us directly on our SoundCloud page or you can visit www.cmaj.ca/page/multimedia/podcasts.

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Encounters — A medical student and a patient help each other hold on just a bit longer