Diana

“Medical students are taught to imagine a binary: doctor and patient, science and faith, objective truth and superstitious fallacy, us and them. Our morning rounds are an exercise in telling and retelling patients’ stories in a way that explains their illnesses, cloaked in the sense of objectivity offered by a white coat. But the stories told on these rounds are just as prone to false truths as the reports of an amnesia patient, subconsciously shaped by our priors, our communities, our own narratives. On rounds, a woman’s pain might be recast as anxiety, for instance, while a vitamin deficiency born of alcohol use might be regarded as a deserved punishment.”
― Pria Anand, The Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our Brains

“But history, alas, is not merely a record of what we do, but also a record of what is done to us.”
― John Green, Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

“How can I accept a world where over a million people will die this year for want of a cure that has existed for nearly a century?”
― John Green, Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

“Beliefs are assumptions or conclusions; values are the parts of life that bring a person meaning. Beliefs reflect what you think of the world; values reveal more about yourself. Confusing these two can be dangerous business. When someone attaches their self-worth to a belief—political, personal, or otherwise—they desperately need to be right. Challenges to what they think feel like threats to how they think—evidence they aren’t smart or good enough. The person screaming loudest is often most fearful of being wrong.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness