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They realize the no money, no church service, no eulogy, no funeral procession no matter how elaborate, can remove the legacy of a mean spirit.

Abraham Verghese

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
As she bent over the child she realized that the tragedy of death had to do entirely with what was left unfulfilled.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Bent Child Death Entirely Over Realized She Tragedy Unfulfilled
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.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Angel Back Blessed Country Funny Hold People Thank You Thing
Ignorance was just as dynamic as knowledge, and it grew in the same proportion.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Dynamic Grew Ignorance Knowledge Proportion Same
Now, as to the problem of how much health care costs and how we reform health care … it is another story altogether.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Altogether Another Care Cost Health Much Problem Reform Story
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
The flip side of suicide is that it leaves a lingering question in the minds of the people who survived. Its like a cancer thats metastasized. The suicide is the cancer and the metastasis is all these people saying, Why? Why? Why?
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Cancer Flip Leave Mind People Side Suicide
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.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Believe Herat Inspiration Motivation Patient Transcendent
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
Be careful! Travel expands the mind and loosens the bowels.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Bowel Careful Expand Loosen Mind Travel
We have the sense that medical students come to medicine with a great capacity to understand the suffering of patients.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Capacity Great Medicine Patient Sense Student Suffering Year
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
Yesterday misspent can’t be recall’d Vanity makes beauty contemptible Wisdom is more valuable than riches.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Contemptible Misspent Rich Valuable Vanity Wisdom Yesterday
At times, with today’s advances in technology, medicine in rural America looks very like it does in America’s cities, but the variety of practices is enormous.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Advance Medicine Technology Time Today Variety
Students undergo a conversion in the third year of medical school – not pre-clinical to clinical, but pre-cynical to cynical.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Clinical Conversion Cynical Medical School Student Undergo Year
We know the average American physician interrupts their patient in 14 seconds.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Average Healthcare Physicians

They realize the no money, no church service, no eulogy, no funeral procession no matter how elaborate, can remove the legacy of a mean spirit.

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They realize the no money, no church service, no eulogy, no funeral procession no matter how elaborate, can remove the legacy of a mean spirit.

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