I give my Community Pediatrics residents this Bertolt Brecht poem from 1938, “A Worker’s Speech to a Doctor,” which lays out the stakes better than I ever could: When we’re sick, we hear You are the one who will heal us. When we come to you Our rags are torn off And you tap around our naked bodies. As to the cause of our sickness A glance at our rags would Tell you more. It is the same cause that wears out Our bodies and our clothes.
