Abraham Verghese is vice chair for the Theory & Practice of Medicine program at Stanford University in California. He also founded an interdisciplinary center at Stanford focused on the human experience in medicine and Stanford Medicine 25, an initiative designed to foster bedside exam skills for professionals.
For Verghese, the most important innovation in medicine is the power of the human hand to touch, to comfort, to diagnose, and to bring about treatment, according to his 2011 TED Talk in Edinburgh, Scotland.
The ritual of one individual coming to another and telling them things that they would not tell their preacher or rabbi, and then, incredibly, on top of that, disrobing and allowing touch, I would submit to you that that is a ritual of exceeding importance, Verghese said.
And if you short change that ritual by not undressing the patient, by listening with your stethoscope on top of the nightgown, by not doing a complete exam, you have bypassed on the opportunity to seal the patient-physician relationship."
(this from today's New York Times article announcing that Verghese will be Harvard's commencement speaker this year.)
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- JO
JoeyMay 26, 2025He is my favorite author and a very compassionate man. My Own Country is his story of working with people with AIDS when noboby else would, especially in rural Appalachia!
ReactReply - MEMemberMay 26, 2025
Thank you for this most excellent submission. The hands off approach to medicine has been growing as the entire system is made to fit the bureaucratic model. Maybe, the good doctor can be the first noted professional to say *This is not working & we need to do it differently * and have the clout to back it up. We will have to wait & see.
ReactReply - STSteveOriginal PosterMay 26, 2025
@yogajoe - I wasn't aware of him at all until I chanced across the referenced article (with an accompanying pic of President Obama presenting him with a medal.) Thanks for the bit of insight into his writing.
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