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What we need in medical schools is not to teach empathy, as much as to preserve it.

Abraham Verghese

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

Helping Home Patient
In an emergency, what treatment is given by ear? Words of Comfort.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Comfort Ears Emergencies Treatment Word
The rituals we use for marriage, baptism or inaugurating a president are as elaborate as they are because we associate the ritual with a major life passage, the crossing of a critical threshold, or in other words, with transformation.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Associate Baptism Elaborate Inauguration Marriage President Ritual
I was angry with myself because I still loved her, or at least I loved that dream of our togetherness. My feelings were unreasonable, irrational, and I couldn’t change them. That hurt.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Angry Dream Feeling Hurt Loved Myself Togetherness Unreasonable
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.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Another Gift Morning Sight Sunrise Wake
I believe in black holes. I believe that as the universe empties into nothingness, past and future will smack together in the last swirl around the drain.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Believe Black Future Hoe Past Smack Universe
I joke, but I only half joke, that if you come to one of our hospitals missing a limb, no one will believe you till they get a CAT scan, MRI, or orthopedic consult.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Believe Cat Hospital Inspiration Joke Limb Missing Motivation Scan
My VIP patients often regret so many things on their deathbeds. They regret the bitterness they’ll leave in people’s hearts.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Deathbed Heart Mean Patient People Regret VIP
In 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.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Always Attack Battle Cancer Country Poison Taken
There is a point when grief exceeds the human capacity to emote, and as a result one is strangely composed-
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Capacity Composed Emote Grief Human Result Strangely
…guilt leads to righteous action, but rarely is it the right action.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Action Guilt Lead Rarely Right Righteous
For one who has an interest in the body as text, airports are treasure troves of information.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Airports Body Country Doe Information Interest Opportunity Treasure
I think we learn from medicine everywhere that it is, at its heart, a human endeavor, requiring good science but also a limitless curiosity and interest in your fellow human being, and that the physician-patient relationship is key; all else follows from it.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Endeavor Good Heart Human Key Limitless Medicine Requiring Science Thinking
Your job is to preserve yourself, not to descend into their hole. It’s a relief when you arrive at this place, the point of absurdity, because then you are free, you owe them nothing.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Absurdity Arrive Descend Hole Job Place Point Preserve relief Yourself
You live it forward, but understand it backward.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Backward Forward Inspire Life Live Understand
The most important innovation in medicine to come in the next 10 years: the power of the human hand.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Hand Human Important Innovation Inspiration Medicine Motivation Ten Year

What we need in medical schools is not to teach empathy, as much as to preserve it.

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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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Popular Authors

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