It took more than science to make hope real.

The freedom of patient speech is necessary if the doctor is to get clues about the medical enigma before him. If the patient is inhibited, or cut off prematurely, or constrained into one path of...

Certainly the primary imperative of a physician is to be skilled in medical science, but if he or she does not probe a patient’s soul, then the doctor’s care is given without caring, and part...

To hope under the most extreme circumstances is an act of defiance that permits a person to live his life on his own terms. It is part of the human spirit to endure and give...

Hope can be imagined as a domino effect, a chain reaction, each increment making the next increase more feasible… There are moments of fear and doubt that can deflate it.

I had learned that every patient has the right to hope, despite long odds, and it was my role to help nurture that hope.

… omniscience about life and death is not within a physician’s purview. A doctor should never write off a person a priori.