Intelligent Compassion
Pat once asked me how much it would cost to make a film for drug addicts to watch when he had them in the ER for treatment. He wondered what would be in such a film. He was struggling to understand the mind of the addict so that he could better help them toward freedom from their addiction. Pat had a head for the sciences and the heart for how to use those sciences. Intelligent compassion. Heart first.
Nowadays I find myself unintentionally looking for Pat in the medical community. I want my doctor
to be as witty and alert as him. I want the doctor on the news to be honest and not cave to political pressures or collective complacency. Somewhere there must be a foundation that awards doctors as much for their bravery as for the usefulness of their talent.
Today I read a story in the New England Journal of Medicine that made me think of this. In this story a doctor catalogues the public health effects of climate change. The nerve! Such honesty may hurt a few executives but it also helps them as it does all of humanity.
2019 Update: In the decade+ since this was written, there have been more stories about climate change but Epstein was among the first and caused controversy with his views. Also, now I look to Doctor's Without Borders as a source for courageous doctors.
-Kevin
Nowadays I find myself unintentionally looking for Pat in the medical community. I want my doctor
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| Pat as a new father with Sam |
Today I read a story in the New England Journal of Medicine that made me think of this. In this story a doctor catalogues the public health effects of climate change. The nerve! Such honesty may hurt a few executives but it also helps them as it does all of humanity.
2019 Update: In the decade+ since this was written, there have been more stories about climate change but Epstein was among the first and caused controversy with his views. Also, now I look to Doctor's Without Borders as a source for courageous doctors.
-Kevin
Comments
I was wondering when Pat brought up this subject.
You are right- he was a compassionate healer, in ways that seem more obvious now. At the time, they were instances of Pat being Pat.
The last time I saw him, he was telling me a story of an elderly neighbor who had fallen from a roof. The wife was upset, certainly, and Pat told me how he had tried to not only encourage her but also prepare her. Being the doctor he was, used to traumas, he knew the instant he saw the man that things did not look good. Although he didn't say exactly how his talk went, I can hear it in my mind, as I could the day he told me of the incident.
Thanks for the Pat memory.
Kevin