That seems to have fixed one problem but now there is another one on how to
set ws v ariable. Since it is a userform I probably don't need to activate
it since it is already activated? All I need to do is set the worksheet
patients. I don't know if it needs to be the active workbook but there is a
runtime error.

thanks in advance,
Private Sub UserForm_Initialize()

Dim intLastRow As Integer
Dim ws As Worksheet
Dim c As Range
Dim rng As Range

Set ws = xl.Worksheets("patients")
intLastRow = ws.Cells.SpecialCells(xlCellTypeLastCell).Row



Set rng = ws .Range("A1:A" & intLastRow)
ComboBox2.Clear
For Each c In Worksheets("patients").rng
ComboBox2.AddItem c.Value
Next c

End Sub