Patient Expectations Quotes

Listening to medical facts was not enough. People wanted one hundred percent guarantees.

We've created a multitrillion-dollar edifice for dispensing the medical equivalent of lottery tickets - and have only the rudiments of a system to prepare patients for the near certainty that those tickets will not win. Hope is not a plan, but hope is our plan.

I don't want to be idealized by a patient because of what I've written.

The dilemma of modern medicine, and the underlying central flaw in medical education and, most of all, in the training of interns, is the irresistible drive to do something, anything. It is expected by patients and too often agreed to by their doctors, in the face of ignorance.

Appearing on TV as a plastic surgeon showcases your talents and that increases demand. We're very busy. The negative thing is that sometimes patients think you can work magic, which, of course, you cannot.

Obviously it's always hard when you tell a patient you can't help them, because maybe it's a physical constraint with the surgery, but in regards to telling a patient that they're not realistic and they're not appropriate psychological candidates, we're pretty used to it.

FREEDLEY: Will I feel better after I take it? DR. FITCH (coldly): I, am a physician, Freedley, not an astrologer. If you want a horoscope, there's a gypsy tearoom over on Lexington Avenue.

If a person is treated like a patient, they are apt to act like one.

The emergency care Americans receive can fall short of what they expect and deserve.

When I got to the hospice I was under the impression it would be a two- or three-week stay. But here I still am, six weeks later, and I've gotten so well Medicare won't pay for me anymore.

The doctor will persist in laboring under the delusion that patients want common sense instead of magic.