The first patient I sutured was from Guatemala.

He answered his daughter’s phone call with “¿si mi princessa?”

When she called to see if her Papa was okay,

And when he would be home to play with her.

I told him it was my first time,

To excuse my shaking hands,

And he met my eyes with warmth

Like a T-Ball coach, coaxing me to the plate.

He was so patient as I injected lidocaine

And clumsily drew the needle through the skin,

Unsure how to handle its “pop” through callused palm,

So unlike the silicone suture pad in my backpack.

I tied knot after knot, slowly and awkwardly,

Erasing the slice and quelling drops of blood.

He congratulated me with every stitch, said he was proud of me,

For my practice paying off,

Showed off the stitches to my supervising doctor

Like my own father,

Who kept my drawings of stick figures on sticky notes

Stuck to his office walls for ten years straight.

Maya Sorini MD MS is a resident physician in Emergency Medicine at Johns Hopkins Medical Center