Quotes About Medicine

What's the difference between physics and psychiatry? One's full of quarks, and the other's full of quacks.

Charles Regis Perrone was a biologist by default. Medical school had been his first goal--specifically, a leisurely career in radiology. The promise of wealth had attracted him to health care, but as a devoted hypochondriac he was repelled by the idea of interacting with actual sick people.

Advances in medicine and agriculture have saved vastly more lives than have been lost in all the wars in history.

Another of Mack's patients says that the aliens have been taking eggs from her since she was sexually mature, and that her reproductive system baffles her gynecologist. Is it baffling enough to write the case up and submit a research paper to The New England Journal of Medicine? Apparently it's not that baffling.

Un asombroso declive de la expectativa de vida, el aumento de la mortalidad infantil, las violentas epidemias de enfermedades, las condiciones sanitarias por debajo del mínimo y la ignorancia de la medicina preventiva se unen para elevar el umbral a partir del cual se dispara el escepticismo de una población cada vez más desesperada

Placebos can be astonishingly effective, especially for colds, anxiety, depression, pain, and symptoms that are plausibly generated by the mind. Conceivably, endorphins—the small brain proteins with morphinelike effects—can be elicited by belief. A placebo works only if the patient believes it's an effective medicine. Within strict limits, hope, it seems, can be transformed into biochemistry. As

We can pray over the cholera victim, or we can give her 500 milligrams of tetracycline every 12 hours.

I saved a man's life once, said Granny. Special medicine, twice a day. Boiled water with a bit of berry juice in it. Told him I'd bought it from the dwarves. That's the biggest part of doct'rin, really. Most people'll get over most things if they put their minds to it, you just have to give them an interest.

When one hears hoofbeats, medical students are taught, one must think of horses, not zebras. But the doctor who sees my blood count will surely think of horses. He will arrive at a perfectly logical conclusion. It will no occur to him that, this time, it is truly a zebra galloping by.

She wants to study medicine, good for her. But why cause so much trouble for herself, trying to be a doctor? Be a nurse instead. This is more acceptable. For a woman to become a doctor is like climbing a ladder full of people on top, fighting to kick you back down. If she becomes a teacher, or even a nun, the door is open, wide open. They will take her with big arms and happy faces." Mama shakes her head.

the practice of medicine in a large and kindly way had led him to the conclusion that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophies and in our small neighborhood relationships.

Although Alchemy has now fallen into contempt, and is even considered a thing of the past, the physicain should not be influenced by such judgements.

People think you go to doctors for their knowledge. You don't go to doctors for their knowledge. You go to doctors for their judgment, their instinct, what to do, how to make the right call.

I wish I had never got manic depression. When I was in junior high, I didn't know what was the matter with me. It was as if I'd died or something. Now that I go to a clinic and get the right kind of medicine, I am not as depressed as I used to be.

I always thought when I left medicine it would just be a one-year timeout and I'd go back, but that's now turned into many more.

Yeah, I didn't ever think about music as a career. Like, it was never - it's just something like an extracurricular activity that my mom put me in. And as every South Asian, you know, like, child, I was like - oh, OK, I can do medicine.

I believe for some high-technology medicine, like transplants and kidney dialysis, age should be a consideration in the delivery of that technology. In a world of limited resources, we have a larger duty to a 10-year-old than to a 90-year-old.

In an area where nothing was known, medicine had to draw on social lore.

Scores of Congolese die each day unnecessarily due to the lack of access to healthcare and modern medicine.

I narrowed my eyes. "Somehow I got the idea you were trying to help me. Guess I was wrong." "Help. Dangerous medicine." "How?" "Hard to gauge the right dose. Especially if there's more than one doctor." "Too much falsely inflates. Too little underprepares.

Mortality teaches clinicians that there is more to doctoring than diagnosing and treating injuries and diseases, more even than saving lives. Mastery of physiological, pathological, and pharmacological knowledge and expertise is essential, but insufficient. Science only becomes medicine when it is applied with caring intention to promote the well-being of people — mortal people.

I began the study of medicine, impelled by a desire for knowledge of facts and of man. The resolution to do disciplined work tied me to both laboratory and clinic for a long time to come.

Medicines heal doubts as well as diseases.

[D]rugs being tested on animals. That sort of thing, well, it depends, doesn't it? If the drug's aspirin and the monkey's got a headache, is it tight?