AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Time now for "My Unsung Hero," our series from the team at the Hidden Brain podcast. "My Unsung Hero" tells the stories of people whose kindness left a lasting impression on someone else. And today's story comes from Kimberly Godsey. Years ago, when Godsey was training to become a nurse practitioner, she was doing rounds with a physician named Joe Seibert. It was an average day until they visited one patient with nausea and abdominal pain. When the pair left the room, Seibert told Godsey the woman's diagnosis - terminal pancreatic cancer.
KIMBERLY GODSEY: And it was at that point he did something that I'd never seen a physician do before. He picked up the phone and called her husband and said, hey, I'm worried about your wife. Can you come up to the clinic? And then he took it another step further. He scheduled her follow-up tests and consults. So when we went back into her room to give her a diagnosis, she received the news with her loving husband by her side. And it was at that point Dr. Seibert said to me, we're supposed to save lives, but eventually in your career, there will come a time when you can't save everybody. But what you can do is you can change how they experience it. That lesson has stayed with me every day.
I hadn't heard from Dr. Seibert for years when one day, at the end of my workday, I got a phone call. It was Dr. Seibert. And he said, hey, Kim. I just saw your mom. Are you coming to her appointment tomorrow? And I didn't have plans to come. And he said, you know, I'm worried about your mom. It would be nice if you could come to the appointment. So the following morning, I showed up. And sure enough, he diagnosed my mom with terminal pancreatic cancer. While it was the worst news, she received that diagnosis with all three of her loving children by her side.
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GODSEY: I take that lesson I learned from Dr. Seibert so many years ago into my personal life and into my professional life every day, because I've learned that it's the little things that we can do that actually can make a huge difference in how people experience life.
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CHANG: Kimberly Godsey of Monterey, California. A little more than a year after the diagnosis, Godsey's mom passed away. She says Joe Seibert will always hold a special place in her family's hearts. You can find more stories of unsung heroes at hiddenbrain.org.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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