Tell us please, what treatment in an emergency is administered by ear?”….I met his gaze and I did not blink. “Words of comfort,” I said to my father.
ABRAHAM VERGHESELife for the Italians was what it was, no more and no less, an interlude between meals
More Abraham Verghese Quotes
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I’ve had my share of angels.
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Now, as to the problem of how much health care costs and how we reform health care … it is another story altogether.
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Patients know in a heartbeat if they’re getting a clumsy exam.
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Students undergo a conversion in the third year of medical school – not pre-clinical to clinical, but pre-cynical to cynical.
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What we need in medical schools is not to teach empathy, as much as to preserve it.
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You are an instrument of God. Don’t leave the instrument sitting in its case, my son. Play! Leave no part of your instrument unexplored. .
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Being the first born gives you great patience.
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We know the average American physician interrupts their patient in 14 seconds.
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Empathy can be replaced by cynicism.
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There are moments as a teacher when I’m conscious that I’m trotting out the same exact phrase my professor used with me years ago.
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I think America is really in denial about the degree to which residents, particularly foreign medical graduates, man the county hospitals of this country, and but for their services, I’m not sure how exactly we could manage.
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Life for the Italians was what it was, no more and no less, an interlude between meals
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As she bent over the child she realized that the tragedy of death had to do entirely with what was left unfulfilled.
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In an emergency, what treatment is given by ear? Words of Comfort.
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If we are fortunate, we ‘beat’ the cancer. If not, we are posthumously praised for having ‘succumbed after a long battle.’
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Still, it’s an apt metaphor for our profession. But there’s another kind of hole, and that is the wound that divides family.
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That’s the funny thing about America–the blessed thing. As many people as there are to hold you back, there are angels whose humanity makes up for all the others.
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The crookedness of the serpent is still straight enough to slide through the snake hole.
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It was all I had, all I’ve ever had, the only currency, the only proof that I was alive. Memory.
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When a man is a mystery to himself you can hardly call him mysterious.
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The process of learning huge volumes of information about disease, of learning a specialised language, can ironically make one lose sight of the patient one came to serve;.
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Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.
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When you win, you often lose, that’s just a fact. There’s no currency to straighten a warped spirit, or open a closed heart, a selfish heart.
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I had an uncle who, looking back, was probably not the most-educated physician around but he carried it off so well.
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There is that lovely feeling of one reader telling another, ‘You must read this.’
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Another day in paradise’ was his inevitable pronouncement when he settled his head on his pillow. Now I understand what that meant: the uneventful day was a precious gift.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE