Prognosis Quotes

Omniscience about life and death is not within a physician's purview. A doctor should never write off a person a priori. ~ Jerome Groopman

When our son's autism was diagnosed at the age of 2, there was no clear prognosis. We didn't even know if he'd ever learn to talk. But we found talented people to work with him and he improved, slowly at first and then more rapidly. ~ Claire Scovell LaZebnik

Block has a list of questions that she aims to cover with sick patients in the time before decisions have to be made: What do they understand their prognosis to be, what are their concerns about what lies ahead, what kinds of trade-offs are they willing to make, how do they want to spend their time if their health worsens, who do they want to make decisions if they can't? A decade ~ Atul Gawande

You know, there are no guarantees on prognosis. ~ Elizabeth Edwards

Before asserting a prognosis on any patient, always be objective and never subjective. For telling a man that he will win the treasure of life, but then later discovering that he will lose, will harm him more than by telling him that he may lose, but then he wins. ~ Suzy Kassem

Money spent on vegetative patients is money not spent on preventive care, such as flu shots and mammograms. Each night in an ICU bed for such patients is a night that another patient with a genuine prognosis for recovery is denied such high-end care. Every dollar exhausted on patients who will never wake up again is a dollar not devoted to finding a cure for cancer. ~ Jacob M. Appel

If a stock doesn't act right don't touch it; because, being unable to tell precisely what is wrong, you cannot tell which way it is going. No diagnosis, no prognosis. No prognosis, no profit. ~ Edwin Lefevre

Although it has become the most visible of American suburban landscapes, the edge node has few architectural defenders. Even developers despair: 'Shopping centers built only in the 1960s are already being abandoned. Their abandonment brings down the values of nearby neighbourhoods. Wal-Marts built five years ago are already being abandoned for superstores. We have built a world of junk, a degraded environment. It may be profitable for a short-term, but its long-term economic prognosis is bleak.' -Dolores Hayden quoting Robert Davis, 'Postscript,' in Congress for the New Urbanism, Charter of the New Urbanism, 2002. ~ Dolores Hayden

We know from our clinical experience in the practice of medicine that in diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment, the individual and his background of heredity are just as important, if not more so, as the disease itself. ~ Paul Dudley White

From my perspective as a depth psychologist, I see that those who have a connection with story are in better shape and have better prognosis than those to whom story must be introduced. ~ James Hillman

Josh's father felt Josh should bond with his fellow injured patients in the ward. This was something I really dissuaded Josh from doing. I didn't want him to hear the hardships, battles, and frustrations that others were going through. I also didn't want Josh to take on their fears and frustrations. We were always pleasant and polite to everyone else in the ward, but my only concern was Josh, and it was enough for us to focus just on his issues. I found the whole Acute Spinal Ward experience extremely negative and distressingly sad with no great healing or recovery objective. The message from the medical team was always, without fail, acceptance of the prognosis. This was totally the opposite message of what we presented and instilled into Josh. We slowly gained evidence that our non-traditional approach was working. ~ Josh Wood

What's the kindest thing you almost did? Is your fear of insomnia stronger than your fear of what awoke you? Are bonsai cruel? Do you love what you love, or just the feeling? Your earliest memories: do you look though your young eyes, or look at your young self? Which feels worse: to know that there are people who do more with less talent, or that there are people with more talent? Do you walk on moving walkways?

Should it make any difference that you knew it was wrong as you were doing it? Would you trade actual intelligence for the perception of being smarter? Why does it bother you when someone at the next table is having a conversation on a cell phone? How many years of your life would you trade for the greatest month of your life? What would you tell your father, if it were possible? Which is changing faster, your body, or your mind? Is it cruel to tell an old person his prognosis?

Are you in any way angry at your phone? When you pass a storefront, do you look at what's inside, look at your reflection, or neither? Is there anything you would die for if no one could ever know you died for it? If you could be assured that money wouldn't make you any small bit happier, would you still want more money? What has been irrevocably spoiled for you?

If your deepest secret became public, would you be forgiven? Is your best friend your kindest friend? Is it any way cruel to give a dog a name? Is there anything you feel a need to confess? You know it ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

For a seriously autistic kid, the best prognosis might be getting into a mainstream school without being too much of a shadow. For a moderately autistic kid the best prognosis is full recovery. ~ Jenny McCarthy

If you use Hollywood as the test tissue for mankind, what could the prognosis be? ~ Pauline Kael

I can confirm by a modern dream the element of prognosis (or precognition) that can be found in an old dream quoted by Artemidorus of Daldis, in the second century A.D.: A man dreamed that he saw his father die in the flames of a house on fire. Not long afterward, he himself died in a phlegmone (fire, or high fever), which I presume was pneumonia. ~ C. G. Jung

I feel great, the prognosis is excellent. ~ Steven Cojocaru

Attachment is our connection with the world. In the earliest attachment relationships, we gain or lose the ability to stay open, self-nurturing and healthy. In those early attachment bonds, we learned to experience anger or to fear it and repress it. There we developed our sense of autonomy or suffered its
atrophy. Connection is also vital to healing. Study after study concludes that people without social contact - the lonely ones - are at greatest risk for illness. People who enjoy genuine emotional support face a better prognosis, no matter what the disease. ~ Gabor Mate

You can believe the diagnosis, not the prognosis. ~ Deepak Chopra

Go to every IEP with a plan of your own. Be the expert. Teachers and therapists know general information only. You, on the other-hand, know the specifics about your child – you are your child's only real expert. Pop in unexpectedly to observe. Keep educators on their toes. Be kind and push gently. If needed, push hard. ~ Liz Becker

A diagnosis is not a prognosis unless you let it be. ~ JohnA Passaro

I glance over my shoulder, at the car following close behind us. It's impossible to see the driver. To tell if it's Cassian. After a moment, it pulls around and passes us. I sigh.
"Why do I get the feeling that I'm abducting you? Should I be on alert for sirens in the rearview mirror?"
"I left willingly." I force a grin and tease, "I don't think you'll get arrested."
"Great. You don't 'think.' That's encouraging." He gives me a wincing smile. "But maybe not. I am eighteen, after all - "
"You're eighteen? But you're a sophomore."
An uneasy look passes over his face. "I missed a lot of school a few years back. Half of seventh grade and all of eighth, in fact. I was sick."
"Sick?" I echo. That reminder of his mortality crashes down on me. It'll always be there, smoke rising between us. Xander had mentioned Will being ill, but I never imagined it as anything serious.
"How? I mean, what . . ."
He shrugs like it's nothing, but he won't glance at me. He stares at the road. "Leukemia. But I'm better now. Completely cured."
"Were you very . . . bad off?"
"For about a year. The prognosis wasn't - " He stops suddenly, like he's said too much, and I get that sense again. The feeling that he's not telling me something. That he's holding back. A muscle in his jaw ripples with tension. "Look, don't worry about it. Aren't I a perfect male specimen now?" He sends me a wink. "Don't I look healthy?"
I really didn't like when I found out tha ~ Sophie Jordan

Amateur psychiatric prognosis can be fascinating when there's absolutely nothing else to do. ~ Richard Condon

I was recently diagnosed with dyslexia and restless leg syndrome. The doctor arrived at this prognosis after my arm wouldn't stop shaking. ~ Jarod Kintz

What a doctor or healer tells you is a reflection of the beliefs and expectations you hold. Change your beliefs and you change the prognosis. Who is the doctor? The mind of the patient. ~ Alan Cohen

The main reason why clinicians may not diagnose personality disorders is that they think that doing so supports therapeutic pessimism. Recent research has shown this is not true; most patients get better, either with time or with treatment, that the prognosis is actually better than in many patients with severe mood and anxiety disorders. ~ Joel Paris

Contingent on what, though? Some bases for feeling good about oneself may be worse than others. Jennifer Crocker, a psychologist at Ohio State University, and her colleagues have shown that the prognosis is particularly bad when self-esteem hinges on outdoing others (competitive success), approval by others, physical appearance, or academic achievement.47 Consider the last of those. When children's self-esteem rises or falls with how well they do at school, achievement can resemble an addiction, "requiring ever greater success to avoid feelings of worthlessness." And if it looks as though success is unlikely, kids may "disengage from the task, deciding it doesn't matter, rather than suffer the loss of self-esteem that accompanies failure. ~ Alfie Kohn

I'm still in The Syd Barrett Memorial Rehabilitation Centre, Cambridge, UK
When and if I'm let out, I'll move on to Saucerful of Secrets.
Prognosis: Uncertain. ~ Sienna McQuillen

[After a poor prognosis for recovery from her doctor following her 1990 bus accident] I said if it is up to me, I'm going to be OK. ~ Gloria Estefan

Cruelty, whether physical or emotional, isn't normal. It may signal what psychologists call the dark triad of psychopathic, narcissistic and Machiavellian personality disorders. One out of about every 25 individuals has an antisocial personality disorder. Their prognosis for recovery is zero, their potential for hurting you about 100 percent. So don't assume that a vicious person just had a difficult childhood or a terrible day; most people with awful childhoods end up being empathetic, and most people, even on their worst days, don't seek satisfaction by inflicting pain. When you witness evil, if only the tawdry evil of a conversational stiletto twist, use your ninjutsu, wait for a distraction, then disappear. ~ Martha N. Beck

If you think about it, the public perception of funky brain chemistry has been as varied and weird as the symptoms, historically speaking.

If I had been born a Native American in another time, I might have been lauded as a medicine man. My voices would have been seen as the voices of ancestors imparting wisdom. I would have been treated with great mystical regard.

If I had lived in biblical times, I might have been seen as a prophet, because, let's face it, there are really only two possibilities: either prophets were actually hearing God speaking to them, or they were mentally ill. I'm sure if an actual prophet surfaced today, he or she would receive plenty of Haldol injections, until the sky opened up and the doctors were slapped silly by the Hand of God.

In the Dark Ages my parents would have sent for an exorcist, because I was clearly possessed by evil spirits, or maybe even the Devil himself.

And if I lived in Dickensian England, I would have been thrown into Bedlam, which is more than just a description of madness. It was an actual place - a "madhouse" where the insane were imprisoned in unthinkable conditions.

Living in the twenty-first century gives a person a much better prognosis for treatment, but sometimes I wish I'd lived in an age before technology. I would much rather everyone think I was a prophet than some poor sick kid. ~ Neal Shusterman