Sherwin B. Nuland

"If there is one operation for a disease, you know it works. If there are fifteen operations, you know that none of them work."

"With deep sedation or the blessed respite of terminal coma that comes to some at the end of a difficult struggle, the actual hour when the heart stops is indeed often tranquil. Many do, in this way, a…"

"Of hundreds of known diseases and their predisposing characteristics, some 85% of our aging population will succumb to the complications of one of only seven major entities: atherosclerosis, hypertens…"

"Long after the theories on which they were based had been debunked, Galen's concepts of sickness and its treatment continued to have a pervasive influence on the daily practice of medicine. Indeed, it…"

"The later decades of a life become the time for our capabliites to find an unscattered focus, and in this way increase the force of their concentraled worth."

"Poets, essayists, chroniclers, wags, and wise men write often about death but have rarely seem it. Physicians and nurses, who see it often, rarely write about it."

"In its own unhurried way, age soundlessly and with persistence treads ever closer behind us on slippered feet, catches up, and finally blends itself into us—all while we are still denying its nearness…"

"Tradition is a persuasive teacher, even when what it teaches is erroneous."