Every day, in every country, thousands of patients share their stories with their doctors. To be able to do their job to the best of their abilities, medical experts use their ‘professional empathy’: they sympathize with their patients but try to keep themselves at a distance. But there is always that one patient who, for whatever reason, bridges this distance and often unwittingly, has a lasting impact on their doctor’s life. There’s the dying patient whose decision to donate their organs would save the lives of five different people, bringing incredible comfort to the family they left behind. There’s the little boy, diagnosed with life-threatening malaria in a Sudanese refugee camp, whose astonishing survival against the odds still inspires their doctor each time they stand by the bed of a child who looks unlikely to make it. That One Patient is brimming with intimate stories of connection and of the unanticipated ways we can affect one other’s lives.