“My sense is that the wonderful technology that we have to visualize the inside of the body often leaves physicians feeling that the exam is a waste of time and so they may shortchange the ritual.”

It’s an eerie feeling, as if my old mentor is not just in the room, but in my shoes, using me as his mouthpiece.

According to Shiva, life is in the end about fixing holes. Shiva didn’t speak in metaphors. fixing holes is precisely what he did.

Empathy can be replaced by cynicism.

I’ve had my share of angels.

I always wondered if the good people who send us bibles really think that hookworm and hunger are healed by scripture? Our patients are illiterate.

A beautiful literary collection that tells of today’s country doctor, somewhat removed from our romantic black-bag image of days gone by, but still fulfilling an essential need in caring for spread-out populations.

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.

To be around someone whose self-confidence is more than what our first glance led us to expect is seductive.

When I wake to the gift of yet another sunrise my first thought is to rouse him and say, I owe you the sight of morning.

…guilt leads to righteous action, but rarely is it the right action.

Students undergo a conversion in the third year of medical school – not pre-clinical to clinical, but pre-cynical to cynical.

By visiting patients in their home, by helping them come to terms with their illness, I could heal when I could not cure.

She died chasing greatness and never saw it each time it was in her hand, so she kept seeking it elsewhere, but never understood the work required to get it or to keep it.

Sandip Roy has broken new ground in this tale of the modern Indian family. A lovely read

We’re losing a ritual. We’re losing a ritual that I believe is transformative, transcendent, and is at the heart of the patient-physician relationship.

There is a point when grief exceeds the human capacity to emote, and as a result one is strangely composed-

I think about my sons and the legacy I have to leave for them – and it always brings me back to reality.

I don’t leave home without my Skullcandy Crushers.

The miscegenation laws of the South only operate against the legitimate union of the races; they leave the white man free to seduce all the colored girls he can, but it is death to the colored man who yields to the force and advances of a similar attraction in white women.

I’d have wasted a lot of time and trouble before I learned that the best way to take all people, black or white, is to take them for what they think they are, then leave them alone.

The most important thing of all is my parents were able to leave all four of their children better off than themselves. That story has a name, it’s called the American dream.

Leave your drugs in the chemist’s pot if you can heal the patient with food.

The world is not the most pleasant place. Eventually, your parents leave you and nobody is going to go out of their way to protect you unconditionally.

Conservatism is not about leaving people behind. Conservatism is about empowering people to catch up, to give them the tools at their disposable that make it possible for them to access all the hope, all the promise, all the opportunity that America offers. And our programs to help them should reflect that.