A physician told me a good prayer today as relevant now as ever that he heard when he was in med school by Sir Robert Hutchison:
From inability to let well alone;
From too much zeal for what is new
And contempt for what is old;
From putting knowledge before wisdom,
Science before art,
And cleverness before common sense;
From treating patients as cases;
And from making the cure of the disease
More grievous than its endurance;
Good Lord, deliver us.
Amen!
Today, the physician I was working with had to break news about metastatic breast cancer that had returned after a 14 year hiatus. The female patient celebrated a 50+ wedding anniversary this year. Her husband and two of her children were present and several others were waiting in the wings by their phones to hear the news. Not only was the sadness in the room palpable, so was the love. It almost brought tears to my eyes but I managed to choke them back. I think I’ll be doing that a lot in my career.
No comments:
Post a Comment