More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
The patients needed us, and even though we could not cure them, we could offer them what we had—clinical skill, empathy, and excellent care. We had to stick with it and we did.
all of us who worked on the ward with these patients had to stuff away our feelings of loss, day after day, just to be able to carry on.
For those to whom much is given, much is required.”
Science can be hard and heartbreaking.
I was doing something that I have always loved to do and still love to do—taking care of very sick patients in the middle of the night when there were only skilled people around doing their thing.
“It is more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of disease a person has.”
People associate science with absolutes that are immutable, when in fact science is a process that continually uncovers new information. As new information evolves, the process of science allows for self-correction.
“The patient is no mere collection of symptoms, signs, disordered functions, damaged organs, and disturbed emotions. The patient is human, fearful, and hopeful, seeking relief, help, and reassurance.”
Understanding this compels me to abide by the principles to always be honest; to be unafraid of saying that I do not know something; to never overpromise; to be comforting, yet realistic.
You learn to push through crises and fatigue, to not feel sorry for yourself. Doing your job was what mattered.
Keeping an open mind about both possibilities does not mean that one cannot have an opinion. Possibility does not necessarily mean equal probability.
When you delay implementing a decision that you have already made, nothing good ever happens.
