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
fascinated
Though I am fascinated by knowledge, I am even more fascinated by wisdom.
cancer ocean cutting
This is my life, I thought...I have excised the cancer from my past, cut it out; I have crossed the high plains, descended into the desert, traversed oceans, and planted my feet in new soil; I have been the apprentice, paid my dues, and have just become master of my ship. But when I look down, why do I see the ancient, tarred, mud-stained slippers that I buried at the start of the journey still stuck to my feet?
zero two numbers
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'.
wheels looks caught
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.
emergencies ears treatment
What treatment in an emergency is administered by ear?
reform care lines
The bottom line: health care reform is about the patient, not about the physician.
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.
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.'
sacred ordinary intrusion
If 'ecstasy' meant the sudden intrusion of the sacred into the ordinary, then it had just happened to me.
ignorance grew proportion
Ignorance was just as dynamic as knowledge, and it grew in the same proportion.
snakes slides enough
The crookedness of the serpent is still straight enough to slide through the snake hole.
paradise another-day precious-gifts
Another day in paradise' was his inevitable pronouncement when he settled his head on his pillow. Now I understand what that meant: the uneventful day was a precious gift.
incentives instead lets patients
Lets take away the incentives to do 'to' patients and instead create incentives to do 'for' patients, to be 'with' patients. We don't need to do comparative effectiveness trials to see if that works; we can just ask patients.
centuries developed pool rays
When you have a natural genetic tan developed over centuries and many generations, the idea of soaking up rays by the pool has never made sense.