“It is much more important to know what sort of a patient has a disease than what sort of a disease a patient has.”
William Osler
“The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease”
“Care more for the individual patient than for the special features of the disease. . . . Put yourself in his place . . . The kindly word, the cheerful greeting, the sympathetic look -- these the patient understands.”
“To study the phenomena of disease without books is to sail an uncharted sea, while to study books without patients is not to go to sea at all.”
“A physician who treats himself has a fool for a patient.”
“He has been a doctor a year now and has had two patients, no, three, I think / yes, it was three; I attended their funerals.”
Mark Twain
“We recognize that many diseases we aim to treat have a strong genetic component. Additionally, we know some patients taking medicines show efficacy or experience side-effects, while others do not. Our understanding of all this has improved greatly but these areas remain as significant challenges in drug development.”
John LaMattina
