“One reason I can be more tolerant than most is that as a therapist I have the advantage of information about my patients that most people are not privy to. And I discover that we rarely if ever see the totality of another in ordinary social intercourse. When an individual appears mean and lazy, we are only seeing one part of the person, elicited by a particular set of circumstances on a particular day, and we do well to wait a while before concluding that what we see is the whole person.” PeopleIfsWellsMeanPersonsI CanReasonWholeIndividualSocialWaitingSeeingInformationParticularPerspectiveCircumstancesOrdinaryAdvantagePatientLazyIntercourseTherapistsTotalityWhole PersonConcluding Author:Alan Loy McGinnis
“Care more for the individual patient than for the special features of the disease. . . . Put yourself in his place . . . The kindly word, the cheerful greeting, the sympathetic look - these the patient understands.” LooksCareIndividualSpecialDiseasePatientFeaturesCheerfulSympatheticGreetings Author:William Osler
“Services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.” ShouldIndividualExampleBecomingCitizensPatientObviousParticipatingDementiaHealth Services Author:Ezekiel Emanuel
“As economists have often pointed out, we pay doctors for quantity, not quality. As they point out less often, we also pay them as individuals, rather than as members of a team working together for their patients. Both practices have made for serious problems.” MadeProblemTogetherIndividualPayQualityPracticeTeamSeriousMembersDoctorsPatientWorking TogetherQuantityEconomistTeam Working Author:Atul Gawande
“Much research in psychology has been more concerned with how large groups of people behave than about the particular ways in which each individual person thinks... too statistical. I find this disappointing because, in my view of the history of psychology, far more was learned, for example, when Jean Piaget spent several years observing the ways that three children developed, or when Sigmund Freud took several years to examine the thinking of a rather small number of patients.” PeopleThinkingWayYearsChildrenPersonsHas BeensThreeIndividualViewsNumbersPsychologyGroupsExampleParticularResearchConcernedPatientBehaveObservingDisappointingSmall NumbersLarge Groups Author:Jean Piaget
“Depression and hopelessness are not the only reasons terminally ill patients wish to end their lives. Many individuals see nothing undignified about choosing to end their lives at the time and manner of their choosing - and many view such a choice as the meaningful culmination of a good life.” EndsReasonChoicesIndividualWishViewsPatientIllMeaningfulGood LifeHopelessnessCulminationTerminally Ill Author:Jacob M. Appel
“But being able to talk to so many patients from so many walks of life gives a tremendous window into people's lives. This is not to say I want to write about individual patients, but I think that after listening to the concerns of people who are so different from me, I can more realistically portray characters who are so different from me.” PeopleThinkingWantGivingWritingI CanDifferentCharacterAbleIndividualWalksListeningConcernWindowPatientWalks Of Life Author:Daniel Mason
“I do not despise genius-indeed, I wish I had a basketful of it. But yet, after a great deal of experience and observation, I have become convinced that industry is a better horse to ride than genius. It may never carry any man as far as genius has carried individuals, but industry-patient, steady, intelligent industry-will carry thousands into comfort, and even celebrity; and this it does with absolute certainty.” MenMayDoeIndividualWishDealsIndustryGeniusComfortHorseAbsolutesIntelligentPatientConvincedObservationCertaintySteadyDespiseAbsolute Certainty Author:Walter Lippmann