No matter what ailed you, you went to see the barber surgeon who wound up cupping you, bleeding you, purging you.
ABRAHAM VERGHESEIn America, we have always taken it as an article of faith that we ‘battle’ cancer; we attack it with knives, we poison it with chemotherapy or we blast it with radiation.
More Abraham Verghese Quotes
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If it does nothing else, allows one the opportunity to make prolonged observations about one’s fellow travelers.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
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 -
What we are fighting isn’t godlessness–this is the most godly country on earth.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
I still find the best way to understand a hospitalized patient is not by staring at the computer screen but by going to see the patient; it’s only at the bedside that I can figure out what is important.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
When we cannot cure or save a life, our patients can at least feel cared for. It should be a basic human right.
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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.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
The most important innovation in medicine to come in the next 10 years: the power of the human hand.
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What treatment in an emergency is administered by ear?
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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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She had always assumed that she would have years to sort out the meaning of life…
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In writing, as in medicine, there are no short cuts. You need stamina.
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We know the average American physician interrupts their patient in 14 seconds.
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By visiting patients in their home, by helping them come to terms with their illness, I could heal when I could not cure.
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A discourse that begins at a book club in a living room, but then spreads. That is meaningful to me.
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For one who has an interest in the body as text, airports are treasure troves of information.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE