One day in January, I was facilitating a fourth-year elective course with eight medical students. It was a medical humanities class, and the topic that afternoon was the virtue of forgiveness. A student named David led the discussion, and I listened as they exchanged ideas. When their energy waned, I asked, “Do any of you have someone to forgive from your clinical experiences? Did anything ever happen that you need to forgive or perhaps still can't forgive?”

I waited for an answer, but no one said a word. When a classroom becomes that quiet in response to a question, I ...