Richard Colgan > Quotes

“How it is that someone can meet a physician and within a few moments conclude that he is a good doctor? What happens during an exam room consultation that makes one patient want to follow the physician’s advice and another go running for the door?”
― Richard Colgan, Advice to the Young Physician

“As doctors we are our patients’ teachers and must provide them with the environment to learn so as to better their physical and mental wellness.”
― Richard Colgan, Advice to the Young Physician

“The organs of the aged do not cry out in pain.”
― Richard Colgan, Advice to the Young Physician

“Many patients fear that the symptom they are experiencing may represent something terrible or fatal, which may in fact not be the case at all. Reassurance that in your experience a certain symptom is not at all likely to cause a certain terrible outcome is sometimes the major agenda, which our patients have in making an appointment”
― Richard Colgan, Advice to the Young Physician

“We are urged by Socrates to be temperate, and as healers we can sometimes do the best for our patients by doing the least. As physicians, we become true practitioners of the healing art when we recognize the potential for illness and disease to improve naturally with time and overcome the urge to provide unnecessary physiological therapy.”
― Richard Colgan, Advice to the Young Physician

“The secret in the care of the patient is to care for the patient.”
― Richard Colgan, Advice to the Young Physician

“Throughout medical school, residency, specialties, and subspecialties some feel we have allowed the science to overshadow the art.”
― Richard Colgan, Advice to the Young Physician

“The doctor’s aim is to do good, even to our enemies, so much more to our friends, and my profession forbids us to do harm to our kindred, as it is instituted for the benefit and welfare of the human race, and God imposed on physicians the oath not to compose mortiferous remedies [1].”
― Richard Colgan, Advice to the Young Physician

“often it is not “the pill in the hand, but the hand behind the pill” that helps our patients feel better [6].”
― Richard Colgan, Advice to the Young Physician

“I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel;”
― Richard Colgan, Advice to the Young Physician