Inside Duke Medicine
Listening to Osler
posted May 1st, 2008As a byproduct of putting together this issue of Inside Duke Medicine, I’ve learned something of Sir William Osler, the esteemed physician and medical educator whose most important work was done about a century ago.
Anybody who has seen the Osler Ivy or attended the Osler Literary Roundtable knows he is well-remembered at Duke.
He was a pithy man, who spread his humanistic view of medicine through memorable sayings.
But, I’ve also learned that, like other famous thinkers, Osler’s fame continues to be spread through words he probably never said.
Many a physician has heard: “Listen to the patient and the patient will give you the diagnosis.”
They’re true words, for medicine and for living. And they’re in Osler’s entry on Wikipedia and in a recent edition of The New York Times.
But, researchers at Duke University Medical Center library, couldn’t find a citation linking those exact words to Osler.
Still, they fit his spirit, the spirit of patient care at Duke Medicine and of this issue.
There’s a lot of listening going on. In the School of Medicine, they listened to needs for a new student center. And across Duke Medicine this month, employees will be taking the Work Culture Survey, one of the chief ways we listen to each other and diagnose our needs.
Osler would be proud.
—Mark Schreiner