Abraham Verghese
Abraham Verghese
Abraham Vergheseis a physician-author, Professor for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Stanford University Medical School and Senior Associate Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine. He is also the author of three best-selling books, two memoirs and a novel. In 2011, he was elected to be a member of the Institute of Medicine...
NationalityEthiopian
ProfessionAuthor
CountryEthiopia
math numbers praying
Pray tell us, what's your favorite number?
ears emergencies comfort
In an emergency, what treatment is given by ear? Words of Comfort.
shows love-to-read willing
I love to read poetry but I haven't written anything that I'm willing to show anybody.
technology feelings body
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.
meals
Life for the Italians was what it was, no more and no less, an interlude between meals
broken generations next
We are all fixing what is broken. It is the task of a lifetime. We'll leave much unfinished for the next generation.
guilt action righteous
...guilt leads to righteous action, but rarely is it the right action.
thinking judging suffering
God will judge us, Mr. Harris, by--by what we did to relieve the suffering of our fellow human beings. I don't think God cares what doctrine we embrace.
destiny omission our-actions
Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.
broken tasks generations
According to Shiva, life is in the end about fixing holes. Shiva didn't speak in metaphors. fixing holes is precisely what he did. Still, it's an apt metaphor for our profession. But there's another kind of hole, and that is the wound that divides family. Sometimes this wound occurs at the moment of birth, sometimes it happens later. We are all fixing what is broken. It is the task of a lifetime. We'll leave much unfinished for the next generation.
spiritual jobs mean
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.
meaningful book writing
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.
cancer taken knives
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.'
home patient helping
By visiting patients in their home, by helping them come to terms with their illness, I could heal when I could not cure.