Top 183 Quotes & Sayings by Famous Surgeons - Page 3

An inquiring, analytical mind; an unquenchable thirst for new knowledge; and a heartfelt compassion for the ailing - these are prominent traits among the committed clinicians who have preserved the passion for medicine.

Medical theories are most of the time even more peculiar than the facts themselves.

It is strongly suspected that a NEWTON or SHAKESPEARE excels other mortals only by a more ample development of the anterior cerebral lobes, by having an extra inch of brain in the right place.

Heart disease is a foodborne illness.

I fired the ball for the purpose of giving those dudes to understand upon what ground I stood, believing that those of this class who believe that there are no women capable of taking care of themselves when young, would inform their friends that they might be in danger of their lives if they approached me.

The first [quality] to be named must always be the power of attention, of giving one's whole mind to the patient without the interposition of anything of oneself. It sounds simple but only the very greatest doctors ever fully attain it. ... The second thing to be striven for is intuition. This sounds an impossibility, for who can control that small quiet monitor? But intuition is only interference from experience stored and not actively recalled. ... The last aptitude I shall mention that must be attained by the good physician is that of handling the sick man's mind.

What is experience? A poor little hut constructed from the ruins of the palace of gold and marble called our illusions.

Everyday hundreds of people came to the hospital... dying, and I have to introduce life into them again... my duty was to compete with death.

I think we need a huge dose of love.

An event experienced is an event perceived, digested, and assimilated into the substance of our being, and the ratio between the number of cases seen and the number of cases assimilated is the measure of experience.

Persons of delicate taste endure stupid criticism better than they do stupid praise.

Education, properly understood, is that which teaches discernment.

Not all of those to whom we do good love us, neither do all those to whom we do evil hate us.

If it is right to be legally married, it is right to be legally divorced ... To be deprived of a Divorce is like being shut up in prison because someone attempted to kill you. It is just as honorable to get out of matrimonial trouble legally, as to be freed from any other wrong.

Most animal experimentation is useless.

I used to be squeamish a long time ago and I guess, secretly squeamish, no... but I have a huge respect for the human body and what we do and so I think it's a massive privilage for people to let you operate on them. And I used to be very "OOOH GOSH! THIS IS BAD!" but to see people bleeding and suffering is bad and I will never get over that, but being able to do something about it, means that you're no longer squeamish.

We love justice greatly, and just men but little.

What is slander? A verdict of "guilty" pronounced in the absence of the accused, with closed doors, without defence or appeal, by an interested and prejudiced judge.

I think work is a privilege. ... It keeps you alive, spiritually.

It is necessary to guard ourselves from thinking that the practice of the scientific method enlarges the powers of the human mind. Nothing is more flatly contradicted by experience than the belief that a man distinguished in one or even more departments of science, is more likely to think sensibly about ordinary affairs than anyone else.

People can lose so much skin that it has a huge effect on the body and when they scar they are affected for life. I've worked in this area and have for years tried to improve spray on skin cells, but this is just one part of the jigsaw towards making it better. We needed to get it on quicker then we can reduce the scarring. That's my motivation, my drive towards making it better.

I've always felt that maybe one of the reasons that I did well as a student and made such good grades was because I lacked confidence. Lacked self-confidence, and I never felt that I was prepared to take an examination, and I had to study a little bit extra. So that sort of lack of confidence helped me, I think, to make a good record when I was a student.

Friendship admits of difference of character, as love does that of sex.

The air of caricature never fails to show itself in the products of reason applied relentlessly and without correction. The observation of clinical facts would seem to be a pursuit of the physician as harmless as it is indispensable. [But] it seemed irresistibly rational to certain minds that diseases should be as fully classifiable as are beetles and butterflies. This doctrine ... bore perhaps its richest fruit in the hands of Boissier de Sauvauges. In his Nosologia Methodica published in 1768 ... this Linnaeus of the bedside grouped diseases into ten classes, 295 genera, and 2400 species.

I always feel sad, to be honest, to see people badly injured. That's important because if someone's life is being changed like that it's extraordinarily important for that person - and you can't forget whether it was ten years ago, twenty or today. So I feel the same each time - I feel sad but I also feel that I should do the best I can to make it the best I can for them. So that's how I cope - by working.

It was not noisy prejudice that caused the work of Mendel to lie dead for thirty years, but the sheer inability of contemporary opinion to distinguish between a new idea and nonsense.

I can do something about people who need me, who have been injured. So the biggest thing about being a doctor is my education and training means I can help people to reduce their suffering and that's what being a doctor is, to reduce suffering and to try to improve the life of people who have been injured.

Everything that is exquisite hides itself.

If we watch ourselves honestly we shall often find that we have begun to argue against a new idea even before it has been completely stated.

Have friends, not for the sake of receiving, but of giving.

Good information is the best medicine.

Winning brought me a wonderful sense of completeness.

Avoid secret's! Be open about which you are. It takes too much energy to hide in the closet about any issue.

Often a healing takes place in ourselves as we pray for the healing of others.

As a painter, I realized that what we see is just manifestation of unseen power. Since then [1958 Coup in Iraq], reality started to take another form in my mind. Hence, I was aware of deception of our senses.

As a physician, I am embarrassed by my profession's lack of interest in healthier lifestyles. We need to change the way we approach chronic disease.

If you are too fond of new remedies, first you will not cure your patients; secondly, you will have no patients to cure.

The man who inspired me most, I think, was Dr. Alfred Blalock, who was professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins. He was a rather simple man with a burning curiosity. It was through his curiosity that he made many real contributions to medical science.

The dispassionate intellect, the open mind, the unprejudiced observer, exist in an exact sense only in a sort of intellectualist folk-lore; states even approaching them cannot be reached without a moral and emotional effort most of us cannot or will not make.

I think confidence is something you build gradually, with experience. I've always felt that maybe one of the reasons that I did well as a student and made such good grades was because I lacked confidence. I never felt that I was prepared to take an examination, and I had to study a little bit extra.

If mankind is to profit freely from the small and sporadic crop of the heroically gifted it produces, it will have to cultivate the delicate art of handling ideas. Psychology is now able to tell us with reasonable assurance that the most influential obstacle to freedom of thought and to new ideas is fear; and fear which can with inimitable art disguise itself as caution, or sanity, or reasoned skepticism, or on occasion even as courage.

When unhappy, one doubts everything when happy one doubts nothing.

Australia has got some of the best sports people in the world, but we've also got some of the best scientists and innovators too, and that needs to be celebrated more.

When after many battles past, Both tir'd with blows, make peace at last, What is it, after all, the people get? Why! taxes, widows, wooden legs, and debt.

That which deceives us and does us harm, also undeceives us and does us good.

Disease often tells its secrets in a casual parenthesis.

Pleasure once tasted satisfies less than the desire experienced for its torments.

Art should stimulate.

You don't do anybody any favours by being less than you are.

I've always felt that I did well as a student because I lacked confidence.

No individual or people can achieve anything without industry suffering, and sacrifice.

It is a most gratifying sign of the rapid progress of our time that our best text-books become antiquated so quickly.

The habit of prayer communicates a penetrating sweetness to the glance, the voice, the smile, the tears,--to all one says, or does, or writes.

The spirit of Texas seems to pervade our everyday existence. Our desire is to be superlative, not only the largest, but also the best in the United States.

God often visits us, but most of the time we are not at home.

I've always thought that my exposure to competitive sports helped me a great deal in the operating room. It teaches you endurance, and it teaches you how to cope with defeat, and with complications of all sort. I think I'm a well-coordinated person, more than average, and I think that came through my interest in sports, and athletics... Playing basketball you have to make decisions promptly, and that's true in the operating room as well.

Let the generations know that women in uniform also guaranteed their freedom.

Great dejection often follows great enthusiasm.

Every country needs its heroes, and we must follow them.

My mother's great line was, Grasp the nettle with two hands, girl, because if you don't somebody else will.