A conspiracy of anonymity

“How do you think of something to write every week?” someone asks.

Someone helpfully replies for me: “He doesn’t. He just rearranges the same one.”

Many a true word said in jest. But the themes of medicine are constant in time and geography. They are important but abstract, and completely ignored in medical education: doctoring is about reading people, knowing when to listen and act but also knowing when not to listen and not to act. At its core, doctoring is the willingness and …