letterjan21

Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.

For he wounds, but he also binds up; he injures, but his hands also heal. From six calamities he will rescue you; in seven no harm will touch you.

And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven.

Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability.

“Are you planning to follow a career in Magical Laws, Miss Granger?” asked Scrimgeour. “No, I’m not,” retorted Hermione. “I’m hoping to do some good in the world!”

Ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you.

As to diseases, make a habit of two things — to help, or at least, to do no harm.

Medicine is an imperfect science, an enterprise of constantly changing knowledge, uncertain information, fallible individuals, and at the same time lives on the line. There is science in what we do, yes, but also habit, intuition, and sometimes plain old guessing. The gap between what we know and what we aim for persists. And this gap complicates everything we do.

It’s easy to make perfect decisions with perfect information. Medicine asks you to make perfect decisions with imperfect information.

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.