Dear Mairi,

You had never met Dr. Tyler Lamb when you heard what he did. But when a patient told you what happened on New Year’s Eve, you knew it was a story worth sharing – and you made sure it didn’t stay quiet. As an anesthesiologist, your day-to-day involves crossing paths with nearly every department in this hospital. Stories find you, not because you’re looking for them, but because you’re present in the moments when they come to you.  

Coming across a patient at the Lois Hole doing a procedure, who felt called to share her story, unprompted, is its own kind of community. You had no obligation to carry that story anywhere, but you did.

The call came on New Year’s Eve. Dr. Lamb had reviewed a patient’s results and something concerned him enough to pick up the phone, after hours, on a holiday, when no one would have faulted him for waiting. She asked if it could wait. He told her it couldn’t. Three hours after she arrived at hospital, she coded, just past midnight.