Abraham Verghese Quotes

When I told my doctor I couldn't afford an operation, he offered to touch-up my X-rays.

Money has transformed every watchdog, every independent authority. Medical doctors are increasingly gulled by the lobbying of pharmaceutical salesmen.

Boxing has a problem - a big one. Think of it as a monster that's hiding under the bed. Eventually, the monster is going to come out and take a big chunk out of the sport. Fighters, trainers, managers, promoters, even government regulators can legally bet on fights. They can also bet on fights they're involved with.

Committing unnecessary surgeries is very, very rare. And it's very wrong.

I don't think there is a good reason for an abortion, but Dr. Jasper made me really realize it was just a racket. He was just doing it for the money. He didn't care about the women.

If the AMA [American Medical Association] is against you, you must be doing something right.

This is the dark side of pharmaceutical practices in enlisting and paying professionals [phjysicians] to pitch their profit-making drug.

For the record, I've never taken a bung in my life. I might have enjoyed a meal or a bottle of wine on an agent or two but that is it. I was earning £1.5m a year, so I didn't need a little bit extra from an agent. It would have been madness.

My father has fought to protect people from predatory pharmaceutical companies and to make sure drug payments and kickbacks to doctors are disclosed.

In some of the countries where we operate, there is a tradition of corruption, in which the political elites work with business in the framework of unsavory relationships.

The problem with venality in business is that getting outraged about it makes it easy to miss the systemic problems that venality often disguises.

In all cities, the better classes - the business men - are the sources of corruption, but they are so rarely pursued and caught that we do not fully realize whence the trouble comes.

A democratic medical establishment does not alter people's bodies to fit regressive social norms; it advocates for patients by demanding the social body get its act together.

Buying only what you know can end in disaster. Just think about Enron's employees and business partners, the 'locals' who bought lots of its stock because they thought they were in the know.

If someone really wants my company's business, why shouldn't he be able to do everything he can - including paying me off - to get that business? Because bribery encourages people to make decisions based on the wrong criteria, which means in the business world that it distorts the efficient allocation of resources.

We say here that if you fall down in the United States, the ambulance man must feel for your wallet before he feels for your pulse.

Without true medical liability reform, our doctors will continue to leave, and young doctors coming out of medical school $100,000 to $200,000 in debt will not be able to afford such onerous costs.

When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of criminals. He has nerve and he has knowledge.

I'm strongly for a patient Bill of Rights. Decisions ought to be made by doctors, not accountants.

Even when EPA subjects its science to peer review, the agency often stacks the deck of supposedly independent advisory panels by including members who are EPA grant recipients.

Many of the critics today get airline tickets, hotel accommodation, bags, beautiful photographs, gifts and other expenses paid by the distributors, and then are supposed to write serious articles about the movie.

Big business does not want honest government.

We are not being invited to speak [and be paid honoraria] because of our forensic abilities ... or because we have some fantastical insights to offer. We are being invited because we sit on a committee that involves legislation that affects those interests.

There is a pervasive lack of accountability in medicine that extends from the most newly qualified doctor right through the most senior professors.

Many years ago doctors would bleed sick patients with leeches. Today, the insurance companies do that.