Public health, in the small things

I am studying public health, but the lessons I remember most happened far away from any lecture hall. The woman selling tomatoes who told me her back has hurt for twenty years but she cannot afford a day of rest. The boy at the clinic who came in for asthma and left with a prescription he could not read. The grandmother who said she did not need a doctor — she needed someone to listen. Public health begins where policy ends and people begin. I am learning to listen first.