#medicine

Much of the mystery surrounding drug action can be cleared up by recognizing that drugs affect only the rate at which biologic functions proceed; they do not change the basic nature of existing processes or create new functions. ↗

— Robert Berkow

#medicine #change

The kind of doctor I want is one who when he's not examining me is home studying medicine. ↗

— George S. Kaufman

#examining #home #i #kind #me

So I remember both medicine, because I frequently sick, particularly with asthma for which there was no proper treatment then, and in religion I had a strong sense of there being a patriarchy. ↗

— Thomas Keneally

#because #being #both #frequently #had

Our society finds truth too strong a medicine to digest undiluted. In its purest form, truth is not a polite tap on the shoulder. It is a howling reproach. ↗

— Ted Koppel

#finds #form #howling #medicine #our

By keeping my hand in that, it's the way I keep learning. The main way you learn in medicine is by practicing and working with patients. ↗

— Andrew Weil

#i #keep #keeping #learn #learning

We know from our clinical experience in the practice of medicine that in diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment, the individual and his background of heredity are just as important, if not more so, as the disease itself. ↗

— Paul Dudley White

#clinical #diagnosis #disease #experience #heredity

Betterment is perpetual labor. The world is chaotic, disorganized, and vexing, and medicine is nowhere spared that reality. To complicate matters, we in medicine are also only human ourselves. We are distractible, weak, and given to our own concerns. Yet still, to live as a doctor is to live so that one's life is bound up in others' and in science and in the messy, complicated connection between the two It is to live a life of responsibility. The question then, is not whether one accepts the responsibility. Just by doing this work, one has. The question is, having accepted the responsibility, how one does such work well. ↗

— Atul Gawande

#life

Seeing modern health care from the other side, I can say that it is clearly not set up for the patient. It is frequently a poor arrangement for doctors as well, but that does not mitigate how little the system accounts for the patient's best interest. Just when you are at your weakest and least able to make all the phone calls, traverse the maze of insurance, and plead for health-care referrals is that one time when you have to — your life may depend on it. ↗

— Ross I. Donaldson

#health-care #health-care-system #insurance #medicine #sickness

Where lowland is, that's where water goes. All medicine wants is pain to cure. ↗

— Rumi

#medicine

The hand that rested on my shoulder rubbed it a bit, comfortingly. Then it gave my shoulder a little squeeze. I leaned into him. Maybe it was that I was broken. Maybe it was just that I was out of my mind. But it occurred to me that I was going to kiss him. The thought just arrived, certain knowledge, delivered from some greater, more knowledgeable place. I was going to kiss him. Stephen would not want to kiss me. He would back up in horror. And yet, I was still going to do it. I reached over, and put my hand against his chest, then I moved closer. I could feel just the very tips of the gentle stubble on his cheek brushing against my skin. "Rory," he said. But it was a quiet protest, and it went nowhere. For the first few seconds, he didn't move-he accepted the kiss like you might accept a spoonful of medicine. Then I heard it, a sigh, like he had finally set down a heavy weight. I was pretty sure we were both kind of terrified, but I was completely sure that we were both doing this. We kissed slowly, very deliberately, coming together and then pulling apart and looking at each other. Then each kiss got longer, and then it didn't stop. Stephen put his hand just under the edge of my shirt, holding it on the spot where the scar was. Sometimes the skin around the scar got cold-now it was warm. Now it was alive. "So Thorpe says that-Seriously?" Callum was in the doorway. Stephen mumbled what I think was a very obscene word right against my mouth. "You realize I now owe Boo five pounds?" Callum said. "Boo! I owe you five pounds! ↗

— Maureen Johnson

#callum-mitchell #rory-deveaux #stephen-dene #medicine