101 medical phrases to inspire you
We selected a series of 101 medical phrases (from health professionals or other personalities) who can contribute to the reflection on different points of view of medicine. Get inspired!
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1.
“The joy I felt at the prospect before me of being the instrument destined to take one of the world’s greatest calamities out of the world was so overwhelming that I sometimes found myself in a kind of reverie.”
– Edward Jenner
Edward Jenner it was an English doctor who administered the first vaccine to prevent smallpox, at the time one of the most feared diseases. In 1796, noting that women who milked cows were immune to smallpox, he removed pus from the wound caused by cowpox and injected it into the body of an 8-year-old boy, who contracted the disease mildly. Jenner then inoculated the same boy with liquid extracted from a smallpox pustule and he did not contract the disease. I was immune to smallpox.
The image illustrating the phrase is a color print by C. Manigaud and E. Hamman that depicts Edward Jenner vaccinating his son, detained by Ms. Jenn. (Wellcome Library no. 546000i)
two.
“Medical education does not exist to provide students with a way to earn a living, but to ensure the health of the community.”
– Rudolf Virchow
3.
“Only those who regard healing as the ultimate goal of their efforts can therefore be designated as physicians.”
– Rudolf Virchow
Rudolf Virchow he was a physician and politician, considered the father of modern pathology and social medicine. Virchow’s greatest achievement was the observation that an entire organism doesn’t get sick – just certain cells or groups of cells. He also carried out extensive research in the fields of archeology and anthropology.
4.
“It’s hard to look at a tumor and not come away with the feeling you’ve met a powerful childhood monster.”
– Siddhartha Mukherjee
5.
“But the story of leukemia – the story of cancer – is not the story of doctors who fight and survive, moving from one institution to another. It’s the story of patients who fight and survive, moving from the landfill of one disease to another.”
– Siddhartha Mukherjee
6.
“When you dive into medicine, you realize that hope isn’t absolute. It’s not that simple.”
– Siddhartha Mukherjee
7.
“Resilience, inventiveness and survival – qualities often attributed to great doctors – reflect qualities that emanate first from those who struggle with disease and only then mirror those who treat them.”
– Siddhartha Mukherjee
Siddhartha Mukherjee is an American-Indian physician, oncologist and author of the book “The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer” – 2011 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction and one of the 100 most influential books written in English since 1923, according to Time magazine. A physician at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, Mukherjee focuses his research on cancer therapy and gene functions related to blood cells. He is also the author of “The Gene: An Intimate History” and “The Laws of Medicine: Field Notes from an Uncertain Science“.
8.
“By examining the disease, we gain wisdom about anatomy, physiology, and biology. By examining the person with disease, we gain wisdom about life.”
– Oliver Sacks
9.
“Every problem starts when people forget they are human.”
– Oliver Sacks
10.
“I am a storyteller, for better and for worse. I suspect that a sense of storytelling, storytelling, is a universal human disposition, as are our powers of language, self-awareness, and autobiographical memory.”
-Oliver Sacks
Oliver Sacks he was a neurologist, writer, and professor of neurology at the NYU School of Medicine. The author of several best-selling books, he is known for his collections of neurological case histories, including “A Leg to Stand On“, “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” and “Awakenings“. He was called by the New York Times as “the poet laureate of medicine”.
11.
“Don’t consider any practice immutable. Change and be ready to change again. Don’t accept eternal truth. Try it.” – BF Skinner
12.
“How people feel is often as important as what they do.” – BF Skinner
13.
“A merely happy world is not enough; it must be a world that has some chance of survival.” – BF Skinner
14.
“When it finds its most effective methods, education will be almost entirely devoted to the task of establishing and maintaining a better way of life.” – BF Skinner
Burrhus Frederic Skinner (1904-1990) was an American author and psychologist, a pioneer in the field of experimental psychology and an advocate of behaviorism. He is the author of books like “Science and Human Behavior“, “Behavior Analysis“, “Beyond Freedom and Dignity“, between others.
15.
“Among the arts, medicine, because of its eminent utility, must always occupy the highest place.” – Henry Thomas Buckle
Henry Thomas Buckle (1821 — 1862) was a British historian, associated with historiographical positivism and who exerted great influence among Brazilian intellectuals in the late nineteenth century. He is the author of the work “History of Civilization in England” (1857).
The painting that illustrates the phrase is “La visita de la madre al hospital”, by Enrique Paternina García Cid (Museu do Prado)
16.
“It is not the medical degree but the human quality that is decisive.” – Carl Jung
17.
“Know all the theories, master all the techniques, but when touching a human soul, be just another human soul.”
– Carl Jung
Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology. Jung proposed and developed concepts of extroverted and introverted personality, archetype and collective unconscious. He is the author of books like “The man and his symbols“, “Memories, Dreams, Reflections“, “The Fundamentals of Analytical Psychology“, between others.
18.
“A healthy attitude is contagious, but don’t wait to get it from others. Be a carrier. ” – Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard is an English playwright and screenwriter, known for works such as Shakespeare in Love (1998), Brasil: O Filme (1985) and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990). Some of his most important texts are translated in the collection “Rock ‘n’ Roll and Other Pieces”.
19.
“The profession to which I have the great honor of belonging is, in my opinion, on average, the most humane of all professions.” – Joseph Lister
Joseph Lister (1827 – 1912) was a British surgeon who founded aseptic surgery. While working at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, he applied Louis Pasteur’s discoveries to infection prevention in surgery and successfully introduced carbolic acid (now known as phenol) to sterilize surgical instruments and clean wounds. His work has led to a reduction in post-operative infections and made surgery safer.
The engraving that illustrates the phrase depicts Joseph Lister spraying phenol over a wound while doctors perform the operation (1882).
20.
“The first qualification for a doctor is hope.” -James Little
James Little (1836 – 1885) was professor of surgery at the University of Vermont and the New York Post-Graduate Medical School.
21.
“If you want to be a doctor, I encourage you. There’s no better job in the world to try to help people and make them better.” – A. Ross Lorimer
Andrew Ross Lorimer he graduated from the University of Glasgow, was a researcher in nuclear medicine and biophysics at Vanderbilt University, was a lecturer and consultant in cardiology at the University of Glasgow, and chaired the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow (2000-2003).
22.
“Most people’s education ends after graduation; that of a doctor means a lifetime of ceaseless study.” – Karl FH Marx
Karl Friedrich Heinrich Marx (1796-1877, don’t confuse with the other Karl Marx!) was a German physician, medical historian, and university professor. He studied philosophy and medicine in Heidelberg, received his doctorate in medicine at the University of Jena, was a library advisor and professor at the University of Goettingen.
23.
“The most essential part of a student’s instruction is obtained, as I believe, not in the classroom but at the bedside.” – Friederich Hoffman
Friederich Hoffman (1660 – 1742) was a German physician and chemist. He studied medicine at the University of Jena and was professor of medicine and natural philosophy at the University of Halle, where he also held the position of dean three times. He wrote about 400 publications and was one of the most read medical authors in the 18th century
The work that illustrates the phrase is “The hospital room in the visit of the doctor in jefe” (1889), by Luis Jiménez Aranda. Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla.
24.
…not just in creating a surgeon, but in any medical specialty.
“None of the laymen can realize how much time, pain, mistakes, imagination, mental suffering and money were invested in creating an experienced surgeon.” – Robert T. Morris
25.
“It is the patient and not the case that requires treatment.” – Robert Tuttle Morris
The painting that illustrates this phrase is “Konsultation (Ein Sorgenkind)” – “Consulta (a problematic child)” – by Hugo von Habermann (1886)
Robert Tuttle Morris (1857 – 1945) was an American surgeon and writer. He graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York, studied at several European surgical clinics, and was one of the first to present Lister’s teachings on surgical hygiene in the United States. He was a professor at the New York Post-Graduate Medical School and the author of several books, including: “How We Treat Wounds To-Day” (1886), “Dawn of the Fourth Era of Surgery” (1910), “The Surgeon’s Philosophy” (1918), “Fifty Years a Surgeon” (1935) and “Doctors vs. folks” (1918).
26.
“Preventing disease, alleviating suffering and curing the sick – that’s our job.” – William Osler
27.
“Every patient you see is a much greater lesson than the disease he suffers from.”
– William Osler
28.
“The hardest conviction to enter a beginner’s mind is that the education he is involved in is not a university course, nor a medical course, but a life course, for which the work of a few years with the teachers it’s just a preparation.”
– William Osler
29.
“Whoever studies medicine without books is sailing in an unknown sea, but whoever studies medicine without patients does not go overboard.”
– William Osler
30.
“If it weren’t for the great variability among individuals, medicine could very well be a science, not an art.”
– William Osler
The image illustrating today’s sentence is called “Dr. Tulp’s Anatomy Lesson.” It is an oil on canvas painting by Rembrandt, from 1632. The work is exhibited at the Mauritshuis Museum, in The Hague, Netherlands.
31.
“Medicine is learned at the bedside, not in the classroom. Don’t let your conceptions of illness come from words heard in the classroom or read from the book. See, and then argue, compare, and control. But see first. “
– William Osler
32.
“The practice of medicine is an art, not a trade; a calling, not a business; a calling in which your heart will be exercised equally with your head.”
– William Osler
William Osler was a Canadian physician, considered one of the icons of modern medicine. He was a professor at the Johns Hopkins Hospital School of Medicine and advocated bedside teaching of medicine. Some of your books are “The Principles and Practice of Medicine”, “Evolution of Modern Medicine” and “Aequanimitas: with other addresses to medical students, nurses and practitioners of…
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