I would like to see the day when somebody would be appointed surgeon somewhere who had no hands, for the operative part is the least part of the work.
Interpretation
The essence of a surgeon's role extends beyond technical skills; it involves understanding, empathy, and decision-making.
Harvey Cushing's quote highlights that the role of a surgeon is not solely defined by their ability to perform surgery with their hands but rather encompasses a broader range of qualities, including critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and the capacity to lead a medical team. This suggests that a physician's effectiveness is determined more by their overall approach to patient care rather than just their technical abilities.
In practice
In a medical conference discussing the qualities of a good surgeon.
In these days when science is clearly in the saddle and when our knowledge of disease is advancing at a breathless pace, we are apt to forget that not all can ride and that he also serves who waits and who applies what the horseman discovers.
A physician is obligated to consider more than a diseased organ, more even than the whole man - he must view the man in his world.
There is nothing so good for the human soul as the discovery that there are ancient and flourishing civilized societies which have somehow managed to exist for many centuries and are still in being though they have had no help from the traveler in solving their problems.
If you come to a fork in the road, take it.
Maybe it's just in America, but it seems that if you're passionate about something, it freaks people out. You're considered bizarre or eccentric. To me, it just means you know who you are.
Tertön Sogyal, the Tibetan Mystic, said that he was not really impressed by someone who could turn the floor into the ceiling or fire into water. A real miracle, he said, was if someone could liberate just one negative emotion.
Later, she would remember these years, and realize with astonishment that she had, by fifteen, decided on most of the assumptions she would carry for the rest of her life: that people were essentially not evil, that perfection was death, that life was better than order and a little chaos good for the soul. Most important, this life was all. Unfortunately, she forgot these things, and had to remember them the hard way.
If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.
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