Meeting basic food and shelter needs of a growing population and catering to the insatiable consumer demands of people profoundly influences the quality of our environment. President Nixon observed that many of our present social problems may be related to the fact that we have had only 50 years in which to accommodate the second 100 million Americans. To provide for the increasing needs and demands of people, we are polluting our air, soil, and water. Unchecked population growth, people pollution, is not merely a problem, it is a paradox. It is an issue that is intimately private and yet inescapably public.

In this narrative medicine essay, an attending physician reflects on the evolution of the role of the attending physician from a supervisor in the background to a micromanaging supervisor to ensure that the proper steps are followed to meet the quality metrics in place in the current health system.

In this essay, the author relays his personal experience with ethnicity-based discrimination and discusses the “microaggressions” that medical trainees from underrepresented groups based on race/ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation experience.

In this essay, a young medical student describes her struggle with depression and how the experience of vulnerability has bred a deep compassion for her patients and peers.

In this narrative essay, the author wonders what effect the #metoo phenomenon will have on mentoring between male mentors and junior female trainees and faculty and recalls male mentors who were supportive of her and other women colleagues’ professional development in a plea for diversity and inclusion among leaders in medicine that supports the entire academic medical community.

In this narrative medical essay, the authors present 3 scenarios exemplifying the collision between mentoring expectations among millennials and older generation faculty and proposes strategies to bridge generational divides and engage the next generation of physicians.

In this narrative medical essay, an internist offers three basic lessons not taught in medical school that he learned about practicing medicine based on his experiences from a patient with whom he has built a trusting relationship over the years.

In this narrative medicine essay, a family practitioner tells the story of how her relationship with an old-order Mennonite woman whose newborn son she examined and took to the hospital for cardiac surgery one Christmas day turns to friendship and a relationship with her broader community when the woman stays with her during her newborn daughter’s cardiac surgery.

In this narrative medicine essay, a psychiatrist used her residency to avoid grieving the loss of her brother to suicide but through participation in a grief support group during training she began to thaw enough to remember her brother, watch videos of ephemeral moments like celebrating his fourth birthday, an act that allowed her to see him and her family again.

In this narrative medicine essay, a physician finds in the motion of diastole, the process of letting go and filling up, an apt metaphor for how to handle the burnout, anxiety, and depression of medical training.

In this narrative medicine essay, a medical school dean talks about the reticence most women feel when considering leadership roles and urges women to work out of their comfort zones, seize diverse opportunities, and step into leadership roles.

In this narrative medicine essay, a clinical educator uses her experiences enduring the aftermath of treatment for acute myeloid leukemia to reflect on the difference between physician-teachers and patients’ experience of illness and to locate meaning in what she can offer her colleagues and trainees despite persistent disability.