As a help for the nurses I was teaching, I went with an oncology professor for a whole year. We talked with grown-ups but also with some children. I remember I was wearing a white coat and tie. Nobody asked me who I was, but the doctor would say, "This is one of the professors." One woman just beginning her chemotherapy asked, "Are you a medical doctor?" I said, "No, I'm a professor of ethics at Fairfield University in Connecticut."

A priest-doctor in Farm Street, who had been in Africa, brought me for a visit to St Joseph's Hospital. He greeted everyone, the patients and the head nurse. Afterwards I said to myself, "This is a place that I'd like work in." I asked the matron, who was the president of the hospital, whether I could come back and be part of the teaching corps or audit the teachers. She was an Irish nurse, a Sister of Charity. She was very forthright, and said, "We never invite anyone to watch people die." So I said, "I would like to do more. I would like to maybe take the place of the chaplain and do priestly work." "Oh that's different," she said. "Fr. Tom has not had a vacation in years." So I went over there three times for three weeks apiece.

Due to death or sickness some of these selected readings have been read by someone other than the author. This page contains one such replacement.