Hotel-Dieu Hospital in Montreal, one of the oldest in North America. In the emergency ward, patients await their diagnosis, foreshadowed by the most personal questions from doctors. Others don’t have the luxury of worrying about such things. They suffer in pain, fight to live or simply want it all to end, despairing at the body’s inability to do what it’s supposed to. We cannot face disease, much less face those who suffer from it. But what’s left of the human once laid out on the operating table, dreading bad news or anticipating the end? Something moving, feeling, loving. The heart that beats.