Lasse Carlsson

“LAWS OF THE HOUSE OF GOD I Gomers don’t die. II Gomers go to ground. III At a cardiac arrest, the first procedure is to take your own pulse. IV The patient is the one with the disease. V Placement comes first. VI There is no body cavity that cannot be reached with a #14 needle and a good strong arm. VII Age + BUN = Lasix dose. VIII They can always hurt you more. IX The only good admission is a dead admission. X If you don’t take a temperature, you can’t find a fever. XI Show me a BMS who only triples my work and I will kiss his feet. XII If the radiology resident and the BMS both see a lesion on the chest X ray, there can be no lesion there. XIII The delivery of medical care is to do as much nothing as possible.”
― Samuel Shem, The House of God

“It ain't easy to do nothing, now that society is telling everyone that their body is fundamentally flawed and about to self-destruct. People are afraid they're on the verge of death all the time”
― Samuel Shem, The House of God

“I make them feel like they’re still part of life, part of some grand nutty scheme instead of alone with their diseases, which, most of the time and especially in the Clinic, don’t hardly exist at all. With me, they feel they’re still part of the human race.”
― Samuel Shem, The House of God

“Sometimes, drunk, I ruminate on the state of my liver, and think of all the cirrhotics I have watched turn yellow and die. They either bleed out, raving, coughing up and drowning in blood from ruptured esophageal veins, or, in coma, they slip away, slip blissfully away down the yellow-brick ammonia-scented road to oblivion.”
― Samuel Shem, The House of God