{"quotes":[{"text":"Everything stinks: creosote, bleach, disinfectant, soil, blood, gangrene.The military authorities say uniforms must be preserved at all costs, but that means manhandling patients who are in agony. Cut them off, says Sister Byrd, and she's the voice of authority here, in the Salle d'Attente, not some gold-braid-encrusted crustacean miles away from blood and pain, so cut they do, snip, snip, snip, snip, as close to the skin as they dare.On either side of Paul as he cuts are two long rows of feet: yellow, strong, calloused, scarred where blisters have formed and burst repeatedly. Since August they've done a lot of marching, these feet, and all their marching has brought them to this one place.","author":"Pat Barker","tags":["blood","marching","pain","patients","war"],"id":2265,"author_id":"Pat+Barker"},{"text":"When ill, the patient assumes what Parsons called 'the sick-role'. Accordingly, the sick person is, on the one hand, excused his or her social responsabilites, but, on the other hand, is expected to desire a return to health and to comply unquestioningly with the directives of medical experts in order to achieve this goal.","author":"Mary Lindemann","tags":["medicine","patients","sociology"],"id":10981,"author_id":"Mary+Lindemann"},{"text":"It was a lesson she was still learning. When she had first started nursing, she had taken every death personally, like she was losing her father all over again. Every patient lost under her care was a little piece of death she would carry around with her until the end of her own life. But the alternative seemed so unfeeling. Tina and the other nurses could crack jokes and banter back and forth about contestants on American Idol before the body of a deceased patient was even cold. It was a coping mechanism, she knew, but not necessarily one she thought she would ever adopt. There had to be something in between. Olive had been called a bleeding heart before, but her heart no longer had the same plasticity and tenderness—it was scarred and worn beyond repair.","author":"Andrea Lochen","tags":["coping","death","lesson","loss","nurse","nursing","patients","repeat","year"],"id":14172,"author_id":"Andrea+Lochen"},{"text":"Dr. Richard Selzer is a surgeon and a favorite author of mine. He writes the most beautiful and compassionate descriptions of his patients and the human dramas they confront. In his book Letters to a Young Doctor, he said that most young people seem to be protected for a time by an imaginary membrane that shields them from horror. They walk in it every day but are hardly aware of its presence. As the immune system protects the human body from the unseen threat of harmful bacteria, so this mythical membrane guards them from life-threatening situations. Not every young person has this protection, of course, because children do die of cancer, congenital heart problems, and other disorders. But most of them are shielded—and don’t realize it. Then, as years roll by, one day it happens. Without warning, the membrane tears, and horror seeps into a person’s life or into the life of a loved one. It is at this moment that an unexpected theological crisis presents itself.","author":"James C. Dobson","tags":["and","aware","bacteria","be","beautiful","body","book","by","cancer","children","compassionate","confront","congenital-heart-problems","crisis","descriptions","die","disorders","do","doctor-richard-selzer","don-t","dramas","every","every-day","from","guards","happens","hardly","harmful","his","horror","human","imaginary","immune-system","into","it","its","itself","letters-to-a-young-doctor","life","life-threatening","loved-one","membrane","moment","most","mythical","not","of","one-day","other","patients","people","person","person-s","presence","presents","protected","protection","protects","realize","roll","seem","seeps","shields","situations","surgeon","tears","the","them","theological","they","threat","time","to","unexpected","unseen","walk","warning","without","years","young"],"id":28622,"author_id":"James+C.+Dobson"},{"text":"I think timing is better left up to God to decide then religious leaders. I once met a man that brought his wife flowers in the hospital. They held hands, kissed and were as affectionate as any cute couple could be. They were both in their eighties. I asked them how long they were married. I expected them to tell me fifty years or longer. To my surprise, they said only five years. He then began to explain to me that he was married thirty years to someone that didn’t love him, and then he remarried a second time only to have his second wife die of cancer, two years later. I looked at my patient (his wife) sitting in the wheelchair next to him smiling. She added that she had been widowed two times. Both of her marriages lasted fifteen years. I was curious, so I asked them why they would even bother pursuing love again at their age. He looked at me with astonishment and said, “Do you really think that you stop looking for a soulmate at our age? Do you honestly believe that God would stop caring about how much I needed it still, just because I am nearing the end of my life? No, he left the best for last. I have lived through hell, but if I only get five years of happiness with this woman then it was worth the years of struggle I have been through.","author":"Shannon L. Alder","tags":["choosing","elderly","grace","happiness","love","marriage","misleading","patience","patients","perspective","relationships","see","soulmates","staying-positive","stayingpositiveu-com","struggles","timing","true-love","truth","understand","waiting","wisdom"],"id":33940,"author_id":"Shannon+L.+Alder"},{"text":"If you knew how the journey was going to end, you could afford to be patient along the path.","author":"Joseph J. Ellis","tags":["discipleship","faith","patients","perspective"],"id":61328,"author_id":"Joseph+J.+Ellis"},{"text":"Too much profit is being made at the expense of unsuspecting patients.","author":"Melissa Cady","tags":["business","chronic-pain","medicine","patients","profit"],"id":75798,"author_id":"Melissa+Cady"},{"text":"I am in a profession that has succeeded because of its ability to fix. If your problem is fixable, we know just what to do. But if it’s not? The fact that we have had no adequate answers to this question is troubling and has caused callousness, inhumanity, and extraordinary suffering.","author":"Atul Gawande","tags":["doctors","ethics","medicine","mortality","patients"],"id":107928,"author_id":"Atul+Gawande"},{"text":"Before you diagnose any sickness, make sure there is no sickness in the mind or heart. For the emotions in a man's moon or sun, can point to the sickness in any one of his other parts.","author":"Suzy Kassem","tags":["anatomy","body","diagnosis","doctors","emotions","feelings","health","heart","human-body","medicine","mind","moon","patients","physicians","sickness","soul","sun"],"id":111771,"author_id":"Suzy+Kassem"},{"text":"I’m now ‘Doctor’ to the patients and I have to cover my ignorance by waving my arms and looking grave.","author":"Howard Florey","tags":["doctor","funny","grave","humor","ignorance","md","nobel-laureate","patients"],"id":153344,"author_id":"Howard+Florey"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":24,"pages":3,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}