I have a lot of strangers to thank today.

I don’t know how the bloody hell people who work in hospitals handle literal life and death in their care every day. I wish I did. I wish I had that kind of strength. Maybe it’s the joy of helping people get better, the sense of self-worth and just basic human goddam love that gets people through the pressure and the secret fears of failure and the occasional horror of seeing those fears come true.

And I don’t know where scientists find the persistence and cleverness to contrive remedies that not only attack but fight off counterattacks from hostile beings in a literally molecule-by-molecule theater of war. They don’t get thanked nearly enough, but they save lives every day.

But I do know this: somewhere out there, right this minute, are some labcoated people whom I will never meet, and in this moment, I actually love them. I swear to God that I do. I am grateful. I want to take them out for a beer and hear their stories and help them move heavy stuff and look the other way when they’re jerks because I know they’re really not.

Those of you who’ve read Prisoner of Trebekistan know that we’ve had some hairy moments in the family back in Ohio. I’ve been a little worried lately about the most recent one. Actually, a lot worried. I think the only real reason I distracted myself with The Sopranos for a day or two there, even though (as long-term readers here know full well) I usually don’t even care much about that kind of pop culture thing, has been so I had something else I could think about. Besides what I was thinking about. Which I really didn’t want to think about.

But I think now everything might be OK. I think.

In any case, I only regret that the people who invent and engage these magnificent molecular contraptions we call modern medicines will probably never hear how grateful I am for their work.

But I am. I truly am.

I complain like hell about the American health care system here sometimes, and rightly so. Whether you’d prefer a Canadian system or a French system or such, or even if you think the whole everything-for-profit model is the reason we have these medicines, whatever, you wouldn’t disagree that we really could do things here even better, and probably a lot better. I wish it could be the sort of national crusade and discussion too often reserved for whether to blow something up.

But this post isn’t about economics or a political debate. This isn’t about people with M.B.A.s and J.D.s. This is about M.D.s and Ph.D.s. And R.N.s and M.S.N.s.

If you read this, and you know a doctor or a molecular biologist or a caregiving nurse or someone young who really wants to be one, please hug the holy crap out of them today. I mean it. Tell them someone they don’t even know is grateful.

Thanks.

I have a lot of strangers to thank today.

I don’t know how the bloody hell people who work in hospitals handle literal life and death in their care every day. I wish I did. I wish I had that kind of strength. Maybe it’s the joy of helping people get better, the sense of self-worth and just basic human goddam love that gets people through the pressure and the secret fears of failure and the occasional horror of seeing those fears come true.

And I don’t know where scientists find the persistence and cleverness to contrive remedies that not only attack but fight off counterattacks from hostile beings in a literally molecule-by-molecule theater of war. They don’t get thanked nearly enough, but they save lives every day.

But I do know this: somewhere out there, right this minute, are some labcoated people whom I will never meet, and in this moment, I actually love them. I swear to God that I do. I am grateful. I want to take them out for a beer and hear their stories and help them move heavy stuff and look the other way when they’re jerks because I know they’re really not.

Those of you who’ve read Prisoner of Trebekistan know that we’ve had some hairy moments in the family back in Ohio. I’ve been a little worried lately about the most recent one. Actually, a lot worried. I think the only real reason I distracted myself with The Sopranos for a day or two there, even though (as long-term readers here know full well) I usually don’t even care much about that kind of pop culture thing, has been so I had something else I could think about. Besides what I was thinking about. Which I really didn’t want to think about.

But I think now everything might be OK. I think.

In any case, I only regret that the people who invent and engage these magnificent molecular contraptions we call modern medicines will probably never hear how grateful I am for their work.

But I am. I truly am.

I complain like hell about the American health care system here sometimes, and rightly so. Whether you’d prefer a Canadian system or a French system or such, or even if you think the whole everything-for-profit model is the reason we have these medicines, whatever, you wouldn’t disagree that we really could do things here even better, and probably a lot better. I wish it could be the sort of national crusade and discussion too often reserved for whether to blow something up.

But this post isn’t about economics or a political debate. This isn’t about people with M.B.A.s and J.D.s. This is about M.D.s and Ph.D.s. And R.N.s and M.S.N.s.

If you read this, and you know a doctor or a molecular biologist or a caregiving nurse or someone young who really wants to be one, please hug the holy crap out of them today. I mean it. Tell them someone they don’t even know is grateful.

Thanks.