Patients Quotes

“The reality is that the lives of the smallest patients are in our hands, and their clinical condition can change in an instant. No matter how many times you are involved in situations such as this, the physical stress and anxiety as well as the emotional and psychological effects of being immersed in that environment are dramatic and lasting on the human body, mind, and central nervous system. These effects are severe, and I firmly believe that they are cumulative over your lifetime.”
― DEAN MAFAKO, M.D., Burned Out

“I was able to shake off the near-death experience, and whether it was true or not, I was able to use it as some sort of moral validation as to the importance of my existence, or at least the importance of me completing this job, because clearly God, the universe or whoever understood that there was no other human being alive on this earth stupid enough to take this job.”
― DEAN MAFAKO, M.D., Burned Out

“One of the greatest realizations that I clumsily stumbled upon during this process, was that these people didn’t need someone like me to tell them what to do; they needed someone like me to show them what can be done, together.”
― DEAN MAFAKO, M.D., Burned Out

“When I arrived, I did the job of six people and worked over one hundred hours per week for more than a year until I collapsed in my yard and nearly died!”
― DEAN MAFAKO, M.D., Burned Out

“There are more than 9,000 billing codes for individual procedures and units of care. But there is not a single billing code for patient adherence or improvement, or for helping patients stay well.”
― Clayton M. Christensen, The Innovator's Prescription: A Disruptive Solution for Health Care

“When you get sick you will be surprised by who steps up and who steps away. I can honestly say I did not think this would apply to me. I could not imagine that anyone in my family or circle of friends would not be there for me. Wrong!”
― Lynda Wolters, Voices of Cancer: What We Really Want, What We Really Need

“It is exhausting explaining over and over again that yes, I am doing great and I feel fantastic, but I still cannot do the things I once did. My new normal with Cancer Related Fatigue.”
― Lynda Wolters, Voices of Cancer: What We Really Want, What We Really Need

“Be careful of using the word normal around cancer patients, whether they call themselves a survivor or not, there is no 'back to normal'.”
― Lynda Wolters, Voices of Cancer: What We Really Want, What We Really Need

“I always try to stay positive, but right now I just want to scream and cry a little. I have an amazing support system here, but sometimes I feel like I can't cry or be mad because they think I'm not being positive.”
― Lynda Wolters, Voices of Cancer: What We Really Want, What We Really Need

“I want you to get remarried after I die.”
― Lynda Wolters, Voices of Cancer: What We Really Want, What We Really Need

“I am grateful for everything and every day, and that is no longer just words I feed myself from Post-it notes stuck to my mirror as positive affirmations.”
― Lynda Wolters, Voices of Cancer: What We Really Want, What We Really Need

“You said that life is long and patients often have long careers in treatment. You said they may learn something from one doctor, carry it inside their heads, and, sometime in the future, be ready to do more. And that meanwhile you had played the role she was ready for.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept

“EDS is a scary and challenging diagnosis, but the consequences of not knowing are far greater than that of a correct diagnosis. EDS symptoms can range from the very mild to the extremely severe. One thing is certain, though: If I had received a diagnosis back when my symptoms were mild, I would be living a very different life now. Every single day, in my struggle to actualize the person I still can be, I cannot help but mourn the person I could have been.”
― Michael Bihovsky

“A healer is someone whose hand the patient wants to hold.”
― Aude Mermilliod, Le Chœur des femmes

“Can we become wiser and better people because of major medical problems? Absolutely. But that’s *our* choice. It’s not automatically included in the package – a package that is filled with pain and sadness and disappointment. Anyone who chooses to find a ray of light in that darkness, to use the pain to benefit themselves and other people, has my utmost awe and respect. But that doesn’t erase the horror of the packaging. If we forget that, empathy is lost.

Sickness is not a gift – far more often, it feels like a curse. The people who take that curse and nevertheless continue to try, to fight, to hope – they are the gifts. Love those people well. And love them even more on days when trying, fighting, and hoping are simply out of reach.”
― Michael Bihovsky

“After all, a person has only two hands, and these days there're too many patients and too few doctors.”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

“Doctors who want power will do anything to get it; healers will do anything to get away from it.”
― Aude Mermilliod, Le Chœur des femmes

“Medical textbooks never talk about the pain that's caused by anything that doctors do... And many doctors think that the pain is justified "if it's for the patient's good." That is never true. The least we can do, as healers, is everything in our power not to cause pain.”
― Aude Mermilliod, Le Chœur des femmes

“You will not stop them from dying. At best, you will stop them from dying today.”
― Aude Mermilliod, Le Chœur des femmes

“Sometimes in the winter in the dark I'd wake and everything that smacked of dread would have lifted up and stolen away in the night and I would just be lying there with the snow blowing against the glass. I'd think that maybe I should turn on the lamp but then I'd just lie there and listen to the quiet. The wind in the quiet. There are times now when I see those patients in their soiled nightshirts lying on gurneys in the hallway with their faces to the wall that I ask myself what humanity means. I would ask does it include me.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Stella Maris

“Sophia elbowed her in the side. "Are you deliberately ignoring my question about the dashing major, or are you simply displaying your superior manners?"
"I have nothing of interest to tell you about Major Kurland. He is still bedridden and remarkably argumentative."
"In my experience, men never make good patients," Mrs. Hathaway said comfortably. "They either behave like children, or imagine they are the only mortal in the entire world to ever be so sick, or near death." She set a stich in her embroidery. "Mind you, I'm not surprised Major Kurland is a difficult patient. After his distinguished career in the military, it must be hard for him to be idle."
Lucy didn't argue the point. The whole village seemed intent on hero-worshipping Major Kurland, and wouldn't hear a word against him. Only she, Foley, and Bookman seemed to know what it was really like to tend the oh-so-ungallant major.”
― Catherine Lloyd, Death Comes to the Village

“I have an issue with donating to USA hospitals that have a history of bankrupting their poor patients with astronomical medical bills.”
― Steven Magee

“I wonder as I always do with new patients who she is, what her laugh sounds like, what she had planned to do today. Maybe she should have been meeting a friend for coffee right now. Even with the bruises, the cuts and her broken fingers, she doesn't look like she belongs here. She looks like she's pretending.”
― Emily Elgar, If You Knew Her

“It was clear I had radiation sickness. But it was not acute radiation syndrome or chronic radiation syndrome. It was low level radiation sickness (LLRS). It was more like the sickness cancer patients that have radiation treatment get.”
― Steven Magee, Magee’s Disease

“Share what you know. Your patients will repay you hundredfold.”
― Aude Mermilliod, Le Chœur des femmes

“Doctors are largely a billing service. They rarely cure their patients.”
― Steven Magee

“No symptoms beyond the deep sleep. This girl looks as if the slightest noise might wake her, or the faintest feather of a touch.

Catherine has seen patients rendered similarly lifeless by catatonic depression or by sudden traumatic news. When one's life seems broken beyond repair, there remains one last move: a person can at least shut her eyes.”
― Karen Thompson Walker, The Dreamers

“There is nothing like having a doctor who really cares about you—who can speed up the inhuman pace of medical time, which usually leaves patients begging to hear their test results, waiting too many days for an appointment, at a loss until the conveyor belt brings along the next hurried intervention. 247, Marjorie Williams, A Matter of Life and Death.”
― Lauren Slater, The Best American Essays 2006

“Many patients are misdiagnosed by the medical profession.”
― Steven Magee

“Patientcare is our national anthem.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Dervis Vadisi: 100 Promissory Sonnets