Abraham Verghese Quotes

A doctor is not a mechanic. A car doesn't react with a mechanic, but a human being does.

As a doctor, I've learned the importance and value of listening.

I never quite envisioned myself a proper doctor under that white coat, but I was interested in the idea of healing and in the psychological dimension rather early on.

Practicing medicine is not only my vocation, it gives me an opportunity to continue to be in direct contact with people, to see them and hear their needs.

When we are well, we all have good advice for those who are ill.

Diagnosis is not the end, but the beginning of practice.

The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.

Medicine involves dealing with people who are going through changes and cycles, often people trapped in bodies that are going out from under them. Spending time with them lets you think their way, gives you insights as a writer.

Cure sometimes, treat often, comfort always.

Medicine is not only a science; it is also an art. It does not consist of compounding pills and plasters; it deals with the very processes of life, which must be understood before they may be guided.

Good physicians are rarely dispassionate. They agonize and self-doubt over patients.

Medicine grounds me, it centers me, that's why I continue to do it.

Medicine has always been my calling.

The very success of medicine in a material way may now threaten the soul of medicine.

For a long time, I thought I would like to be a doctor. Such a good profession. So explicitly good. Never a waste of time.

As my mentor in Medical School, Dr William Strong taught me: Never wear a white coat; it separates you from a fellow human being. I never have from that day on. You are your patients guide, counselor, and defender, not their ruler and dictator.

Just from being with my grandmother, my maturity escalated. And now I'm in tune to the needs of people. It was a large responsibility, taking care of a human being.

Patients want to be seen as people. For me, the person's life comes first; the disease is simply one aspect of it, which I can guide my patients to use as a redirection in their lives. When doctors look at their patients, however, they are trained to see only the disease.

Doctors, dressed up in one professional costume or another, have been in busy practice since the earliest records of every culture on earth. It is hard to think of a more dependable or enduring occupation, harder still to imagine any future events leading to its extinction.

The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.

Hospitals are about healing.

It's far more important to know what person the disease has than what disease the person has.

I was good at being a doctor; my patients liked me. At times people trust you with things they wouldn't tell their spouses. It was a real privilege.

In the sick room, ten cents' worth of human understanding equals ten dollars' worth of medical science.