“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.”

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-

Make something beautiful of your life.

When we cannot cure or save a life, our patients can at least feel cared for. It should be a basic human right.

I’ve always wanted to write a book like that, with the sense that you are contributing to the discourse in middle America,

Visiting the hospital, visiting the kids with cancer, visiting the adults, and stuff like that. That’s what I do.

Mr. T. been to chemo, Mr. T been to radiation, hair fall out… but he’s back. Now I can give hope when I go to the hospital, see the sick kids with cancer, tell them, don’t quit.

When I was in the hospital they gave me apple juice every morning, even after I told them I didn’t like it. I had to get even.

If somehow every volunteer vanished tomorrow, so much of this country would come to a standstill: schools, hospitals and libraries.

Everyday hundreds of people came to the hospital… dying, and I have to introduce life into them again… my duty was to compete with death.

I couldn’t wait for Courtney to come to the hospital so I could have all my women together.

A couple of incidents of shortness of breath and checked myself into a hospital, but that one in France really sat me down for a few minutes.

When I was on my hunger strike, and I was in a hospital, the guards who inflicted all manner of injustice against me, and all manner of hardship…