I and my core group of fellow interns were products of the 1960s. We believed that if we saw an injustice, we could organize, take action, and change things for the better. Our generation put the civil rights laws on the books and helped end the Vietnam War. We were pragmatic idealists. When we entered our internship, we were taught to treat our patients in ways that we didn’t think were humane. We ran smack into the conflict between the received wisdom of the medical system and the call of the human heart.
