Burnout also leads to a large swath of physicians who aren't as empathetic toward their patients as they could be.

Empathy--the ability to identify with someone else's suffering--is certainly a prerequisite for a genuine apology.

In general, empathy is easier the more we can identify with someone. When we can genuinely envision ourselves in a situation, it's possible to intuit what that person's suffering might feel like.

Hospital life--with its byzantine array of moving parts layered atop the unpredictable rhythms of illness--is a permanent state of flux.

But I realized that not only did I need to keep tuning my skills as a doctor, I also had to figure out a way to live with the uncertainty of medicine and its attendant anxiety.

But at the most basic level, doctors need to be able to come forward with their errors and near-misses, otherwise we will never know where the problems lay.

Common man's patience will bring him more happiness than common man's power.

Follow your path, and let the people talk.

A good many men and women want to get possession of secrets just as spendthrifts want to get money-for circulation.

I thought I was going nowhere. Now I can see there was a pattern.

New images surround us everywhere. They are invisible only because of sterile routine convention and fear.

The sicker mother got, the stranger the people surrounding her became. I called them The Garland Freaks.

The film from the beginning is not the real world; it's an imaginary world. And this imaginary world is both inside and outside the normal world.

I did pretty well at the Sydney Olympics, but those were my first Games.

In order to do a good job of those things that we decide to do, we must eliminate all of the unimportant opportunities.

Before you speak, listen.