Bedside Medicine: Rituals and Reason in the Genomic Age

April 25, 2012

Abraham Verghese, MD, MACP, Professor for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Senior Associate Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine.

Dr. Verghese is known for the value he places on bedside manner, and emphasizes the importance of truly caring for the patient.  He sees empathy as a way to preserve the innate sensitivity that brings students to medical school but which the rigors of their training frequently suppress.  In 2009, Dr. Verghese published My Own Country: A Doctor's Story, which was Best Book of the Year by Time magazine and later made into a movie; he also wrote a second best-selling book, The Tennis Partner: A Story of Friendship and Loss, about his friend and tennis partner's struggle with addiction.  Cutting for Stone, Verghese's first novel, is now on several bestseller lists.