Reflecting back on my years working in a dialysis unit, my conversations with a man named Mr C have taught me the most. A middle-aged gentleman, he always wore a poorly fitted jacket to the unit and fell asleep soon after we successfully punctured his fistula site. He had had chronic kidney disease since he had been in his forties from longstanding, poorly controlled diabetes mellitus. I still remember the first time I met him, when he had talked aversively about people who underwent dialysis. Mr C referred to those patients being “useless” to society, since they could not allocate enough time for their job or take sick leave from time to time to accommodate dialysis shifts.