We know the average American physician interrupts their patient in 14 seconds. — Abraham Verghese Copy Share Image
I joke, but only half joke, that if you show up in an American hospital missing a finger, no one will believe… — Abraham Verghese Copy Share Image
My sense is that the wonderful technology that we have to visualize the inside of the body often leaves physicians feeling that… — Abraham Verghese Copy Share Image
I joke, but I only half joke, that if you come to one of our hospitals missing a limb, no one will… — Abraham Verghese Copy Share Image
There's something universal about illness... Whether you like it, at some level all patients are saying, 'Daddy, Mommy, help me, tell me… — Abraham Verghese Copy Share Image
I still find the best way to understand a hospitalized patient whose care I am taking over is not by staring at… — Abraham Verghese Copy Share Image
I've never bought this idea of taking a therapeutic distance. If I see a student or house staff cry, I take great… — Abraham Verghese Copy Share Image
I still find the best way to understand a hospitalized patient is not by staring at the computer screen but by going… — Abraham Verghese Copy Share Image
My writing flows out of my doctorhood. They are not separate things. They are one. I think the foremost connection between being… — Abraham Verghese Copy Share Image
We have the sense that medical students come to medicine with a great capacity to understand the suffering of patients. And then… — Abraham Verghese Copy Share Image
“The reader, knowing nothing about the ‘dark continent,’ filled in the blanks. Pictured Stone in a tent, kerosene lamp held up by… — Abraham Verghese Copy Share Image
I think we learn from medicine everywhere that it is, at its heart, a human endeavor, requiring good science but also a… — Abraham Verghese Copy Share Image
What we need in medical schools is not to teach empathy, as much as to preserve it - the process of learning… — Abraham Verghese Copy Share Image
A beautiful literary collection that tells of today's country doctor, somewhat removed from our romantic black-bag image of days gone by, but… — Abraham Verghese Copy Share Image
I've never bought this idea of taking a therapeutic distance. If I see a student or house staff cry, I take great faith in… — Abraham Verghese Copy Share
I love to read poetry but I haven't written anything that I'm willing to show anybody. — Abraham Verghese Copy Share
We come unbidden into this life, and if we are lucky we find a purpose beyond starvation, misery, and early death which, lest we… — Abraham Verghese Copy Share
I think America is really in denial about the degree to which residents, particularly foreign medical graduates, man the county hospitals of this country,… — Abraham Verghese Copy Share
“Do they listen?" He held up a finger. "Every year one does," he said, ginning, "But that one makes it worthwhile. Even Jesus only… — Abraham Verghese Copy Share
“It seems we humans never learn. And so we relearn the lesson every generation and then want to write epistles. We proselytize to our… — Abraham Verghese Copy Share
It was all I had, all I've ever had, the only currency, the only proof that I was alive. Memory. — Abraham Verghese Copy Share
“There it was, Hema must have thought; it was both the sorry and the thank-you that was so long overdue, and the funny thing… — Abraham Verghese Copy Share
“This is my life, I thought, as my taxi slogged through heavy traffic and inched through the tunnel to Logan Airport. I have excised… — Abraham Verghese Copy Share
“I could see that the almost mystical aura of this legendary surgeon -- the single-mindedness, the dedication, the skill -- was mere surface. The… — Abraham Verghese Copy Share
“As a child I'd longed for Thomas Stone or at least the idea of him. So many mornings I waited for him at the… — Abraham Verghese Copy Share
“The reader, knowing nothing about the ‘dark continent,’ filled in the blanks. Pictured Stone in a tent, kerosene lamp held up by a Hottentot… — Abraham Verghese Copy Share
“This was what growing up was about: hide the corpse, don't bare your heart, do make assumptions about the motives of others. They're certainly… — Abraham Verghese Copy Share
“And as for my father? No, he wouldn't ever walk through those gates; I now knew that. Whatever Thomas Stone had, wherever he was… — Abraham Verghese Copy Share
“... telling herself stories about herself in a singsong voice, creating her own mythology.” — Abraham Verghese Copy Share
