Abraham Verghese Quotes, Years Quotes, Medicine 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

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

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.

5 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Motivation Quotes , Believe Quotes

Pray tell us, what's your favorite number?"... "Shiva jumped up to the board, uninvited, and wrote 10,213,223"... "And pray, why would this number interest us?" "It is the only number that describes itself when you read it, 'One zero, two ones, three twos, two threes'.

5 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Zero Quotes , Two 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

When you win, you often lose, that's just a fact. There's no currency to straighten a warped spirit, or open a closed heart, a selfish heart.

5 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Selfish Quotes , Heart 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.

5 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Technology Quotes , Feelings Quotes

You live it forward, but understand it backward.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Life 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

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

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes

He had so many ways of climbing into the tree house in his head, escaping the madness below, and pulling the ladder up behind him.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Climbing Quotes , Escaping Quotes

She had always assumed that she would have years to sort out the meaning of life... As she bent over the child she realized that the tragedy of death had to do entirely with what was left unfulfilled.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Children Quotes , Years 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

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.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Opportunity Quotes , Airports 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.

5 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Regret Quotes , Heart Quotes

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.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Greatness Quotes , Hands 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 use the word 'healing', by that I mean that every disease has a physical element that we're very good at handling, but there's always a sense of the violation. 'Why me?' 'Why is my leg broken on the ski trip and not anyone else's?' And I think that medicine has done a terrible job of addressing that spiritual violation.

5 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Spiritual Quotes , Jobs Quotes

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

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Destiny Quotes , Omission Quotes

The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don't. If you keep saying your slippers aren't yours, then you'll die searching, you'll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.

5 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Motivational Quotes , Destiny Quotes