[Creative Awards 2026] "Are you making a fool of me?" — The word "patient" broken within me

"Are you making a fool of me?"

I gasped for a moment.
I felt as if time had stopped.

An encounter with a philosopher
quietly broke
the word "patient" that existed within me.

The patient was a man in his 60s.
He was a philosopher who taught philosophy at a university.

He had higher brain dysfunction as a sequela of a cerebral infarction,
which hindered his daily life.

The first day of rehabilitation.

It was when I presented a worksheet of single-digit addition and subtraction.

"Are you making a fool of me?"

For a moment, I was speechless.

When I explained the purpose and had him work on the task,
simple mistakes like confusing "+" and "-" were noticeable.

The patient was silent.

"It's just that you're struggling with it due to the illness.
If you continue rehabilitation, the mistakes will decrease."

I said that to him and finished the rehabilitation session.

The next day, the patient refused rehabilitation.

"I feel like I'm being made a fool of."
"I don't want to be rehabilitated by a staff member who is the same age as my students."
"I can do worksheet tasks by myself."

So, my seniors stepped in to follow up.
The 6th-year, 8th-year, sub-leader, leader...

However, no matter who performed the rehabilitation, the refusal did not change.

About a week after the refusal continued.
The day came for me to perform the rehabilitation again.

With a paper in my hand,
I headed to the patient.

"Professor, I don't understand this part.
Could you teach me?"

The author of that paper was the patient himself.

I had almost no exposure to philosophy.
I had only heard the names Socrates and Kant in ethics class.
Naturally, I could barely understand the content of the paper.

Even so,
I wanted to be close to him,
I wanted to understand,
I wanted to touch his life,
so I read it desperately.

Seeing the paper stained red and blue with my notes,
the patient said.

"Did you read that?
What parts didn't you understand?
Shall we talk about it a little?"

From that day on,
the patient became my 'teacher',
and rehabilitation time became the teacher's 'lecture time'.

In order to understand the lectures,
I read philosophy books and papers desperately every day.

Outside of rehabilitation hours, the teacher
prepared lecture content and thought about answers to my questions.

We were both serious in our respective roles.

Three months later.

The symptoms of his higher brain dysfunction improved,
and even simple calculation errors were no longer seen.

The day before discharge.

The teacher handed me a book.
It was the first book the teacher had ever written.

It contained stories about what led him to aim to be a philosopher,
and the philosophers who influenced him.

The final lecture, based on that book,
became a time for us to discuss our own 'philosophies'.

When people get sick, they are called 'patients'.
Medical professionals treat those 'patients'.

However, just because the label changes,
it does not mean that person's knowledge or experience is lost.

Just as I am a human being before I am a speech-language pathologist,
the teacher was also a human being before he was a 'patient'.

What I learned from the teacher was not just knowledge of philosophy.
It was the way of 'learning' rather than 'teaching'.

The patient in front of me is a senior in life,
possessing their own unique knowledge and experience.

For the first time,
I questioned the word "patient" within me.

At that time, that person
was, indeed, my teacher.

And even now,
I sometimes open that book.

Every time I do,
I face the word "patient,"
and remember my teacher from that day.