Hospital regulations require a wheelchair for patients being discharged.

However, while working as a medical student, I found one elderly gentleman — already dressed and sitting on the bed with a suitcase at his feet — who insisted he didn’t need my help to leave the hospital.

After a chat about rules being rules, he reluctantly let me wheel him to the elevator. On the way down I asked him if his wife was meeting him.

“I don’t know,” he said. “She’s still upstairs in the bathroom changing out of her hospital gown.”