Twenty-five years ago today, I was finishing a meeting in my office at Bellevue Hospital in lower Manhattan when a nurse told me that “a small plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers.” I went to a nearby patient-family lounge, where staff were gathered around a television showing the North Tower on fire. The extent of the damage made it immediately clear that this was no small plane. Then, as we watched, a second jet struck the South Tower.
So began a horrific day that would take the lives of nearly 3,000 people, including two of my patients’ husbands and a friend, and shatter America’s sense of invulnerability. There are images from that day I will never forget. Among the most haunting for me were the hundreds of photographs of missing husbands, wives, sons, daughters, colleagues and friends taped to the fence outside Bellevue. For days, families came looking for people who would never come home.
Yet I also remember something very different: extraordinary courage and selflessness. Firefighters ran up stairwells while thousands were running down. Police officers, health care workers, construction workers and ordinary citizens moved toward danger to help strangers. On Flight 93, passengers who realized their plane had been turned into a weapon acted together, sacrificing themselves to save others. And for a brief period, Americans who often disagreed remembered that what unites us is more important than what divides us.
A quarter century later, that lesson seems especially relevant.
We again live in unsettling times. Wars and geopolitical tensions remind us how fragile peace can be. Political violence and extremism have become sources of fear here at home. Our public discourse is increasingly angry, and trust in government, universities, medicine, science and other institutions has eroded. Too often we seem more practiced at identifying what separates us than recognizing what we share.
Anniversaries such as this one also provide perspective, sobering but ultimately uplifting.
We may experience setbacks, both personally and professionally. Our civic and political disagreements can be real and involve important issues. We may find these difficulties frustrating and, all too often, divisive.
But September 11 reminds us what is truly important. No matter what health care challenges we face, here at USF Health, our highest goal remains Making Life Better. Our greatest strength is our people: the faculty member pursuing a discovery, the nurse comforting a frightened patient, the physician staying late to care for someone in need, the staff member solving a problem no one else sees, and the student or resident learning how to assume responsibility for another human life.
9/11 also reminds us that adversity reveals personal and institutional strength just as surely as it reveals individual and institutional resilience — the Obstacle truly is the Way!
The years following September 11 taught us other, more complicated lessons. Those lessons are no less important in 2026 than they were in 2001. But I remain optimistic about the future for both our country and USF Health. Experience has taught me to distinguish between problems that test us and tragedies that define us.
Twenty-five years ago, on a beautiful blue September morning, I saw unimaginable destruction. But in the days that followed, I also saw extraordinary courage, compassion, resilience and generosity. That is the perspective I carry with me today. No matter what challenges we face, I want to be mindful of how fortunate we are to do work that matters, alongside people committed to something larger than themselves.