Sublime

I can anticipate the counterarguments of my colleagues—indeed, I’ve made them myself: But there’s only so much time in a day. You have to triage. You have to maintain appropriate boundaries. All true, and yet this, too, is true: when I talk with my patients about issues not strictly medical, I feel most like a doctor.

While he was dying of prostate cancer, Broyard wrote a memoir, Intoxicated by My Illness. In one table-turning chapter, “The Patient Examines the Doctor,” Broyard writes: What do I want in a doctor? I would say that I want one who is a close reader of illness and a good critic of medicine. [ . . . ] I see no reason or need for my doctor to love me—

Advisory

She says she is fatigued but is engaged when interesting people are present.

In the past few decades, many patients and physicians have come to the conclusion that evidence-based treatments by specialists (and sub- and sub-subspecialists) don’t necessarily supply what people need to heal. Physicians and nurses now routinely team up with mental-health professionals, alternative practitioners, social workers, and chaplains to

“You can’t get there fast enough,” she used to say, “and you can’t get there slow enough.” You approach the room not knowing whether you’re about to be relieved or punched in the gut.

despondency.

inspire hope, and other qualities sometimes called “soft skills” (or, more appreciatively, “the art of medicine”) and which are as useful in my practice as antibiotics and MRIs, if not more so. Similarly, when I’ve been a patient myself, or when someone I love has fallen ill, I’ve been struck by the importance of these qualities to healing.

That too much elation is a chimera.