Abraham Verghese Quotes, Cancer Quotes, Taken Quotes

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. If we are fortunate, we 'beat' the cancer. If not, we are posthumously praised for having 'succumbed after a long battle.'

5 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Cancer Quotes , Taken 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.

5 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Years Quotes , Medicine Quotes

Life, too, is like that. You live it forward, but understand it backward. It is only when you stop and look to the rear that you see the corpse caught under your wheel.

5 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Looks Quotes , Wheels Quotes

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.

5 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Jobs Quotes , Relief Quotes

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.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Morning Quotes , Sight 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

He was teaching me how to die, just as he'd taught me how to live.

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In writing, as in medicine, there are no short cuts. You need stamina.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Writing Quotes , Cutting Quotes

When a man is a mystery to himself you can hardly call him mysterious.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Men Quotes , Mysterious Quotes

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. 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. The Country Doctor Revisited captures the trials and tribulations of medicine, but also the satisfaction and the extraordinary rewards that come to those who embrace such a practice.

5 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Beautiful Quotes , Country Quotes

The only way to know where you are is by where you have just been.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Way Quotes , Where You Are Quotes

I still find the best way to understand a hospitalized patient is not by staring at the computer screen but by going to see the patient; it's only at the bedside that I can figure out what is important.

5 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Important Quotes , Way Quotes

There is that lovely feeling of one reader telling another, 'You must read this.' I've always wanted to write a book like that, with the sense that you are contributing to the discourse in middle America, a discourse that begins at a book club in a living room, but then spreads. That is meaningful to me.

5 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Meaningful Quotes , Book Quotes

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. I've had my share of angels.

5 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Thank You Quotes , Blessed Quotes

We are all fixing what is broken. It is the task of a lifetime. We'll leave much unfinished for the next generation.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Broken Quotes , Generations 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

Wasn't that the definition of home? Not where you are from, but where you are wanted

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Home Quotes , Definitions 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 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.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Heart Quotes , Thinking Quotes

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

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , School Quotes , Years Quotes