Libro

HANDFUL of quotes from materials, mostly books, I'm currently reading.

On the art of seeing and managing too many patients all at once.

To a medical student who requires 2 hours to collect a patient's history and perform a physical examination and several additional hours to organize that information into a coherent presentation, an experienced clinician's ability to decide on a diagnosis and management plan in a fraction of the time seems extraordinary.—DB Mark and JB Wong, In: Decision-Making in Clinical Medicine, Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine, 18th Ed., Vol. 1

A few weeks ago, I had a patient with severe alcohol withdrawal symptoms on top of signs of hepatic encephalopathy. His liver was that bad we couldn't do much else but palliative care. If you're a heavy drinker, better quit now.

It is a common misconception among regular drinkers that stopping alcohol causes more problems than continuing it.— Clinical Management of alcohol withdrawal: a systematic review. Kattimani S and Bharadwaj B. Ind Psychiatry. 22(2): 100-108

This compilation of preaching from the Together for the Gospel Conference in 2011 was given to me by Kuya Vance and Ate Milaine Espino, dear friends from church. Mark Dever's preaching is among my favorites.

I have non-Christian family and friends that (sic) agree with me about the desperate sadness of hunger and malnourishment, unjust governments, or sex-trafficking, and they join me in working to oppose these. But they will not join me in spreading the gospel of Jesus's death for sinners to reconcile us to God. Spiritually, they are at war with this God.—Mark Dever, In: Improving the Gospel: Exercises in Unbliblical Theology (or) Questioning Five Common Deceits, Proclaiming a Cross-Centered Theology.

Book Two is longer than Book One. Karl Ove Knausgaard's autobiographical novel is Proustian in detail. I wonder why I can't get enough of his narrative when all he really talks about are the moment by moment drudgeries of his existence.

So the life I led was not my own. I tried to make it mine, this was my struggle, because of course I wanted it, but I failed, the longing for something else undermined my efforts.—Karl Ove Knausgaard, in My Struggle: Book Two.

I may have forgotten to tell you this: that I'm a coffee drinker now. I like it black most days, with a little milk or creamer occasionally. I get paralyzing headaches when I fail to get my morning dose. It may well be the closest thing I have to an addiction.