Every doctor has patients they can’t forget.

Sometimes, they are not even our own patients. But for all kinds of reasons, their stories stay with us and remind us of the responsibility we bear.

One little boy I will always remember is baby Robbie — a beautiful five-month-old who lost all four limbs to a vaccine-preventable disease: the meningococcal B (MenB) infection.

Robbie was not my patient, but I did meet him in the children’s hospital and his story serves as an enduring reminder for us all that while meningococcal B is rare, it is real.