Florence Nightingale Quotes

The very first requirement in a hospital is that it should do the sick no harm.

It may seem a strange principal to enunciate as the very first requirement in a Hospital that it should do the sick no harm.

Never to allow a patient to be waked, intentionally or accidentally, is a sine qua non of all good nursing.

Doctors have an ethical duty to follow the practices and standards of care.

Whenever a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm.

Whether it's possible or not, being a doctor, you take an oath. To care for your patient, not to kill them. You take an oath to do things that are proper in the medical world. Not to administer something outside of a hospital setting that's not even your area.

Wise and humane management of the patient is the best safeguard against infection.

Women should have the true nurse calling, the good of the sick first the second only the consideration of what is their 'place' to do - and that women who want for a housemaid to do this or the charwomen to do that, when the patient is suffering, have not the making of a nurse in them.

Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of man or woman, bond or free. And whatsoever I shall see or hear in the course of my profession, as well as outside my profession in my intercourse with men, if it be what should not be published abroad, I will never divulge, holding such things to be holy secrets.

Otis Brawley is one of America's truly outstanding physician scientists. In How We Do Harm, he challenges all of us-- physicians, patients, and communities-- to recommit ourselves to the pledge to 'do no harm.'

Every profession will have its rogues, of course, no matter what oaths are sworn, but many health care professionals have a real commitment to serving the best interests of their clients.

When you're dealing with a very sick person and you're doing something to them, an intervention, be it a procedure or a medication, safety is critical.

Underperforming hospitals or units should accept that they have to improve the service they offer or that patients, quite properly, will go elsewhere.

I think the media can be a very positive influence by essentially holding people to task about the importance of high quality medical care. And when the media is scrutinizing you, then I think that's a very good, positive thing for the field of medicine.

I feel badly for the people who suffer from the side effects and consequences of hazardous pharmaceuticals. It's antithetical to the Hippocratic oath.

I'm a veteran. If I go into the V.A. hospital in Tennessee, I want to know that the procedures they're doing to me are being done properly. That is not unreasonable.

If you're a doctor, what do you promise to do? First, do no harm. If your operating philosophy is do no harm, that's not a call to imagination. Not only that, if I'm a patient, I don't want your imagination. I want what works.

Today the demands are for even higher standards in the quality of care, for greater flexibility and convenience in treatment times, and for more prevention through screening and health checks.

My sister is a nurse and saves people's lives.

We must always make sure that our doctors work for their patients and not for the government

A Patients' Bill of Rights is at the center of our national existence.

The hospital industry to this day works its tail off to do the right thing.

It is possible in medicine, even when you intend to do good, to do harm instead. That is why science thrives on actively encouraging criticism rather than stifling it.

Do not meet or overtake a patient who is moving about in order to speak to him or to give him any message or letter. You might just as well give him a box on the ear. I have seen a patient fall flat on the ground who was standing when his nurse came into the room.

We are trained to be medical doctors first and if you have to put neurosurgery aside to deal with the most vulnerable and susceptible patients, then that's what we'll do.