Man's 4th Best Hospital Quotes

“Now I figured that even if I might have my usual trouble working in big heirarchical systems, I would never doubt my competence in, and caring about, what I at best called “healing.”
― Samuel Shem, Man's 4th Best Hospital

“It’s not burnout; it’s doctor abuse.”
― Samuel Shem, Man's 4th Best Hospital

“Kissinger was now a loxed-out, quivering, drooling gomer in a wheelchair—in the sick hell of eternally end-stage Parkinson’s.”
― Samuel Shem, Man's 4th Best Hospital

“LAWS OF MAN’S 4TH BEST HOSPITAL Learn your trade, in the world. Isolation is deadly; connection heals. Connection comes first. Use the “we.” It’s not just what we do; it’s what we do next. It’s not that we do what we think we can get; it’s what we dare to do together. Without health-care workers, there’s no health care. Squeeze the money out of the machines. Put the human back in medicine. Stick together, no matter what.”
― Samuel Shem, Man's 4th Best Hospital

“The measure of a person’s psychological health and growth is not in the self, but in the quality of her or his relationships.”
― Samuel Shem, Man's 4th Best Hospital

“You bet,” said Eddie. “In Derm, you only need to know three things: ‘If it’s dry, you wet it; if it’s wet, you dry it; and if you don’t know, you use steroids.’ No emergencies. Millions. Most popular choice of med students now—that and emergency care. These young docs go for the NOPR: ‘No Ongoing Patient Relationship.’ Just screens and money.”
― Samuel Shem, Man's 4th Best Hospital

“The death fat is that fat tire inside, the IAF. Why? In 1970, a Big Food scientist at a company under the New Jersey Turnpike found the ‘bliss point’ for humans, the perfect combo of refined sugar, salt, and fat that was optimally addictive to humans—junk food. The reason you die from eating at the bliss point is that the inside fat tire grows and grows and provokes inflammation in the body, and that sounds the alarm for the immune system to rush at it all the time, but it keeps on growing and growing until at a critical moment it outgrows the blood supply and the bloodless fat cells die—really quickly die—and this attracts the macrophages, which migrate to the abdominal fat and eat up the dead cells and kind of circle the wagons.”
― Samuel Shem, Man's 4th Best Hospital