Debriefed Medical Quotes

The Republicans want to turn Medicare into a voucher plan that will end guaranteed coverage of medical bills for the elderly. ~ Juan Williams

The whole story of the comfort women, the system of forced sexual slavery, the medical experiments of Unit 731, is not something that is in the US psyche. That is changing because many books are coming out. ~ Iris Chang

The poor, no less than the rich, stay tuned in to the Dream Machine in bad times as well as good ... By 1995, millions of the poor were left without housing, medical care; jobs, or educational opportunity; six million children-one of every four kids under 6 years of age in America-were officially poor. Mired in Third-World conditions of poverty while video-bombarded with First-World dreams, rarely has a population suffered a greater gap between socially cultivated appetites and socially available opportunities. ~ Charles Derber

I'm not sure the least educated members of the population are missing out on the advances in medical technology as much as they are adopting harmful behavioral habits that shorten their life. ~ S. Jay Olshansky

HYENA, n. A beast held in reverence by some oriental nations from its habit of frequenting at night the burial-places of the dead. But the medical student does that ~ Ambrose Bierce

For me, hands are hard." She looks up from what she's doing. "Because you're holding this disconnected hand, and it's holding you back." Cadavers occasionally effect a sort of accidental humanness that catches the medical professional off guard. I once spoke to an anatomy student who described a moment in the lab when she realized that the cadaver's arm was around her waist. It becomes difficult, under circumstances such as these, to retain one's clinical remove. ~ Mary Roach

I decided to start a medical training program for freelancers, only freelancers. They're the ones who are doing most of the combat reporting. They're taking most of the risks. They're absorbing most of the casualties. And they're the most underserved and under-resourced of everyone in the entire news business. ~ Sebastian Junger

Surgery is the most masculine of medical disciplines, taking knives and penetrating the body to find disease and destroy it. It is a war game in which cold and shiny stainless steel is pitted against the unseen, sinister but discoverable and conquerable enemy. Pediatrics is in many ways the most feminine of medical disciplines, with its focus on small children, preventive care, nurturing. In terms of gender, neonatology seems to be somewhere in between. ~ John D. Lantos

It was the smell that hit her first. It was a sterile, antiseptic and very distinctive medical smell, a smell with an underlying metallic reek of blood beneath it. Disturbing as this was, Selena wasn't necessarily shocked. It was a hospital, after all. Just like schools had a tendency to smell like chalk dust and sweat and cafeteria mystery meat, just like auto shops stank of gasoline and rust, hospitals had an odour reflecting their whole purpose, and it was sort of redundant to try and hide it. ~ Rebecca McNutt

Researchers have discovered that adolescents do not walk around with a defect that prevents them from properly assessing risk. B. J. Casey, a neuroscientist at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, notes that it's just the opposite: adolescents overestimate risk, at least when it comes to situations involving their own mortality. The real problem is that they assign a greater value to the reward they will get from taking that risk than adults do. It turns out that dopamine, the hormone that signals pleasure, is never so explosively active in human beings as it is during puberty. Never over the course of our lives will we feel anything quite so intensely, or quite so exultantly, again. ~ Jennifer Senior

The professional ideal of "detached concern" among medical practitioners represents this blend of closeness and distance.1 Many physicians believe it is a prerequisite for effective patient care. But, much like oil and water, detachment and concern do not mix easily. ~ Christina Maslach

Suppose you went to your priest and asked for help; he would refer you to the Bible. But if you went the next day to your medical doctor and he referred you to the book of Hippocrates, which was written at about the same time as the Bible, you would think that was old-fashioned. ~ John Templeton

Even top caliber hospitals cannot escape medical mistakes that sometimes result in irreparable damage to patients. ~ Carl Levin

I push myself because I am a warrior and know that I can make it through this medical challenge. ~ Kristi Patrice Carter

Haroche opened his hand, dismissing the difference. "A matter of medical definition, not practical use. I'm a practical man. I've been studying the reports of your Dendarii missions for ImpSec. You and Simon Illyan made an extraordinary team." We were the best, oh yes. Miles grunted, neutrally, suddenly uncertain of just where Haroche was leading. Haroche smiled wryly. "Filling Illyan's place is a damned big challenge. I'm reluctant to give up any advantage. Now that I've had a chance to work with you in person, and look over your records in real detail . . . I'm increasingly sure that Illyan made a serious mistake when he discharged you. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

My mother was always deeply attracted to anything medical, and I think she would have loved me to have been a doctor. My father was in the army for 21 years, came out just before I was born. There was no history of showbusiness on either side of the family, but they were completely supportive. ~ Lindsay Duncan

Kleptomania is a medical condition beyond the afflicted's control. Picking pockets is a legitimate trade, thank you very much. I only pinch what I intend to take and nothing more. ~ Josin L. McQuein

I don't doubt for a moment that the revolution will result in a nonracial society. I have just come from being a patient in Groote Schuur Hospital where they now have integrated wards. For the first time in my life, I have seen it working. The patients were mixed, the staff was mixed, and the medical officers were mixed; it was totally integrated. It was beautiful. White and black together. And it works. To me that is terribly exciting. ~ Helen Joseph

Now, even as her family grieved, she was giving birth again. ~ Mark Oristano

Out similar characteristics in everyone. For example, law students were undisciplined and competitive, medical students strict and lacking a sense of humor, philosophy ~ Donato Carrisi

If a young person is surviving by trading sex for the thing they need, what useful purpose is served by criminalizing that activity? Doesn't everybody have the right to try and survive? it might cost more to create shelters or group homes, drug treatment programs, schools for emancipated minors, counseling services, medical care and job training. But such programs can salvage human lives that are otherwise going to be cut short or wasted.
If we can afford massive kiddy porn stings, why can't we afford to do this? Is it because, as a society,we obtain more pleasure out of trying to control young people, and punishing the minors who escape our control, than we would out of taking good care of kids who are in trouble? ~ Patrick Califia-Rice

We are less than a decade away from the medical lab the size of a sugar cube. ~ Philippe Kahn

Depending on which frothy-mouthed Internet pulpit-beater I chose to believe, Holzter Point might conceal anything from alien artifacts to Bigfoot's sperm samples, plus a few pickled flipper babies from Three Mile Island and Jimmy Hoffa's stomach contents. I'd like to make fun of those guys, but I had information from a blind vampire that the storage facility held details of medical experiments conducted by the military on the unwilling undead. So far be it from me to call anyone nuts. ~ Cherie Priest

With me, it was my liver that was out of order. [ ... ] I had the symptoms, beyond all mistake, the chief among them being "a general disinclination to work of any kind."
What I suffer in that way no tongue can tell. From my earliest infancy I have been a martyr to it. As a boy, the disease hardly ever left me for a day. They did not know, then, that it was my liver. Medical science was in a far less advanced state than now, and they used to put it down to laziness. ~ Jerome K. Jerome

Why is it called Dr. Device?" "When it was developed, it was called a Molecular Detachment Device. M.D. Device." Ender still didn't understand. "M.D. The initials stand for Medical Doctor, too. M.D. Device, therefore Dr. Device. It was a joke." Ender didn't see what was funny about it. ~ Orson Scott Card

I am who I am firstly because of genetics, and, running a very close second, because of choices: ones my parents made, such as choosing to emigrate to America; ones their parents made, like my Papa Butler opting to ignore medical advice and instead warming my mum in the oven to keep her alive; and very conscious ones that I've made for myself. ~ John Barrowman

Animals, including people, fight harder to prevent losses than to achieve gains. In the world of territorial animals, this principle explains the success of defenders. A biologist observed that "when a territory holder is challenged by a rival, the owner almost always wins the contest - usually within a matter of seconds." In human affairs, the same simple rule explains much of what happens when institutions attempt to reform themselves, in "reorganizations" and "restructuring" of companies, and in efforts to rationalize a bureaucracy, simplify the tax code, or reduce medical costs. As initially conceived, plans for reform almost always produce many winners and some losers while achieving an overall improvement. If the affected parties have any political influence, however, potential losers will be more active and determined than potential winners; the outcome will be biased in their favor and inevitably more expensive and less effective than initially planned. Reforms commonly include grandfather clauses that protect current stake-holders - for example, when the existing workforce is reduced by attrition rather than by dismissals, or when cuts in salaries and benefits apply only to future workers. Loss aversion is a powerful conservative force that favors minimal changes from the status quo in the lives of both institutions and individuals. ~ Daniel Kahneman

Health experts working on a union backed screening program to detect bladder cancer in a Georgia chemical plant were stunned when the local (ACS) cancer society not only didn't support the program, but tried to discourage participation in it. ~ Jack Anderson

The growth of medical expenditures in the U.S. is not caused by administrative costs but by increases in the technical intensity of care over time - a.k.a. medical progress. ~ Virginia Postrel

A smart patient realizes that the person most capable of diagnosing and treating their health issues is themselves. ~ Steven Magee

WhenIWasYourAge: People were never "living with their disease." We cured them. Or they died from it. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Torrens kicked at the door until it was finally opened. The farm couple and three youngsters had been eating breakfast in the common room. The yard dog would have bounded in had not Torrens kicked the door shut.

'I want a bed. Quilts. A hot drink. I am a doctor. This woman is my patient.'

The farm couple was terrified. The look on the face of Torrens cut short any questions. They did as he ordered. One of the children ran to fetch his medical kit from the cart. The woman motioned for Torrens to set Caroline on a straw pallet. The farmer kept his distance, but his wife, shyly, fearffully, ventured closer. She glanced at Torrens, as if requesting his permission to help. Between them, they made Caroline as comfortable as they could.

Torrens knelt by the pallet. Caroline reached for his hand. 'Leave while you can. Do not burden yourself with me.'

'A light burden.'

'I wish you to find Augusta.'

'You have my promise.'

'Take this.' Caroline had slipped off a gold ring set with diamonds. 'It was a wedding gift from the king. It has not left my finger since then. I give it to you now - ' Torrens protested, but Caroline went on - 'not as a keepsake. You and I have better keepsakes in our hearts. I wish you to sell it. You will need money, perhaps even more than this will bring. But you must stary alive and find my child. Help her as you have always helped me.'

'We shall talk of this later, when you ~ Lloyd Alexander

A respect for authority is the basis for most medical education. Students may become so used to memorising that they become prey to the illusion that the reason for learning to parrot lectures and textbooks is that they are the 'truth'. ~ Petr Skrabanek

I suppose it is a lingering trace of Plutarch and my ineradicable boyish imagination that at bottom our State should be wise, sane, and dignified, that makes me think a country which leaves its medical and literary criticism, or indeed any such vitally important criticism, entirely to private enterprise and open to the advances of any purchaser much be in a frankly hopeless condition. ~ H.G.Wells

All men needed to hear their stories told. He was a man, but if he died without telling the story he would be something less than that, an albino cockroach, a louse. The dungeon did not udnerstand the idea of as tory. The dungeon was static, eternal, black and a story needed motion adn tiem and light. He felt his story slipping away from him, beocming inconsequential, ceasing to be. He has no story. There was no story. He was not a man. There was no man here. There was only the dungeon, and the slithering dark. ~ Salman Rushdie

The freedom of patient speech is necessary if the doctor is to get clues about the medical enigma before him. If the patient is inhibited, or cut off prematurely, or constrained into one path of discussion, then the doctor may not be told something vital. Observers have noted that, on average, physicians interrupt patients within eighteen seconds of when they begin telling their story. ~ Jerome Groopman

It is not a medicine. You don't know what's in it. If there were compelling scientific and medical data supporting marijuana's medical benefits that would be one thing. But the data is not there. ~ Andrea Barthwell

Other pressing problems with the current medical model [of mental disorder] is that it encourages false epidemics, most glaringly in bipolar disorder and ADHD, and the wholesale exportation of Western mental disorders and Western accounts of mental disorder. Taken together, this is leading to a pandemic of Western disease categories and treatments, while undermining the variety and richness of the human experience. ~ Neel Burton

Wine is a much better salve than anything the medical profession has ever prescribed. Even the Bible condones it! ~ Jonathan Evison

People deserve to have their experiences understood in a genuine bio-psycho-social approach. All too often, this is ignored in favor of what is a very reductionist, bio-medical, model ... ~ Peter Kinderman

Procedures outside the stadiums and in the parking areas still need to be optimized, for example so that emergency medical services can leave the grounds on their way to the hospital faster. ~ Otto Schily

Pregnancy and childbirth are not only physical and medical experiences, after all. They are also social experiences that, in modern America, just as when abortion was criminalized in the 1870s, serve to restrict women's ability to participate in society on equal footing with men. ~ Katha Pollitt

The medical device tags that are being used [in the USA] are a terrible mistake. Why are we taxing people for trying to save lives and trying to make lives better, make peoples lives healthier? Those taxes should be placed on alcohol, tobacco, junk food, guns. Those are all the things that destroy health. ~ Bill Walton

I've been focused on detecting nuclear terrorism at ports, in cargo containers, and I developed and built detectors that are extremely cheap and also very sensitive. My other big development is a system to produce medical isotopes that are injected into patients and used to diagnose and treat cancer. ~ Taylor Wilson

Moses was good at his job. He was efficient. He was always busy making the room clean. But at the same time, he could read the family's emotions. He never made a medical diagnosis or overstepped the bounds of his position. But he shared a lot of practical, commonsense wisdom gleaned from helping hundreds of families make it through traumatic surgery. Moses reinforced the good: "You're sitting up today; that's a good boy." He offered encouragement: "You're brave. You're strong. You can do it." He gave practical advice: "You've been through a lot, but you're coming through it now. Your body knows what to do. Just rest and let it do it." Matt and Mindi looked forward to visits from Moses because as he made their hospital room clean, he also gave them hope. ~ David Sturt