Abraham Verghese Quotes, School Quotes, Sight Quotes

What we need in medical schools is not to teach empathy, as much as to preserve it. The process of learning huge volumes of information about disease, of learning a specialised language, can ironically make one lose sight of the patient one came to serve; empathy can be replaced by cynicism.

4 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , School Quotes , Sight Quotes

We have the sense that medical students come to medicine with a great capacity to understand the suffering of patients. And then by the end of the third year they completely lose that ability, partly because we teach them the specialized language of medicine.

4 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Years Quotes , Medicine Quotes

My VIP patients often regret so many things on their deathbeds. They regret the bitterness they'll leave in people's hearts. 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.

4 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Regret Quotes , Heart Quotes

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

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Self Confidence Quotes , Seductive Quotes

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.

4 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Heart Quotes , Thinking Quotes

We know the average American physician interrupts their patient in 14 seconds.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Average Quotes , Physicians Quotes

Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Destiny Quotes , Omission Quotes

For one who has an interest in the body as text, airports are treasure troves of information. It seems almost un-American to enjoy delays, and perhaps enjoy is not the best word, but certainly a delayed flight, if it does nothing else, allows one the opportunity to make prolonged observations about one's fellow travelers.

4 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Opportunity Quotes , Airports Quotes

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.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Motivation Quotes , Believe Quotes

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

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Grief Quotes , Results Quotes

I think we can see how blessed we are in America to have access to the kind of health care we do if we are insured, and even if uninsured, how there is a safety net. Now, as to the problem of how much health care costs and how we reform health care ... it is another story altogether.

4 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Blessed Quotes , Thinking Quotes

She felt the familiar calmness of an emergency, but she understood the falseness of that feeling, now that it was her life at stake.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Medicine Quotes , Feelings Quotes

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.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Thinking Quotes , People Quotes

A rich man's faults are covered with money, but a surgeon's faults are covered with earth.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Men Quotes , Earth Quotes

Life for the Italians was what it was, no more and no less, an interlude between meals

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No blade can puncture the human heart like the well-chosen words of a spiteful son.

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Being the first born gives you great patience.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Giving Quotes , Firsts Quotes

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.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Technology Quotes , Feelings Quotes

The world turns on our every action, and our every omission, whether we know it or not.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Omission Quotes , World Quotes

What did it say when a man had fewer clothes than books?

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Book Quotes , Men Quotes