Coping-mechanism Quote by Colin Cotterill
““More panic. More emergencies and disasters. Soon, emergencies fell into a sort of natural ranking: drop-everything emergencies, do-what-you-can emergencies, and you’ll just-have-to-wait emergencies. Disasters, too, had their own ratings: unavoidable, did-the-best-we-could, my fault/your fault. Then there were godlike moments when a decision had to be made as to who most deserved to die. By the afternoon of her second day, Dtui wondered whether her heart had shrunk. She felt less. People had become less human. Death had become less of a tragedy. Her patients weren’t blacksmiths or housewives, they were percentages. “With this little skill and this little pharmaceutical backup, this patient—let’s call her number seven—has a forty percent chance of survival.” It amazed and saddened her that, in order to do her job properly, she had to stop caring.””
About This Quote
Source Book: The Patient, by Colin Cotterill, 2005
The quote describes how medical professionals become desensitized by quantifying patients and prioritizing emergencies, leading to loss of empathy.
In simple terms: Doctors treat patients as numbers, losing compassion.
Key Takeaway
Recognize and preserve empathy in care.
Themes
empathy
dehumanization
medical ethics
stress
decision making
Mood
somber
reflective
Type
critical
observational
When to use this quote
- hospital wards
- emergency rooms
- pandemic response
- resource scarcity
Key Concepts
triage
risk assessment
emotional fatigue
moral injury
Questions to Reflect On
- How do you maintain humanity when faced with overwhelming data?
- Can systems balance efficiency with compassion?
A Different Perspective
Quantification can obscure individual suffering.
