Abraham Verghese Thinks Medicine Can Do Better (Update)

People I (Mostly) Admire

Abraham Verghese is a physician and a best-selling author — in that order, he says. He explains the difference between curing and healing, and tells Steve why doctors should spend more time with patients and less with electronic health records.

• SOURCES:
  • Abraham Verghese, professor of medicine at Stanford University and best-selling novelist.

• RESOURCES:
  • The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese (2023).
  • “Abraham Verghese’s Sweeping New Fable of Family and Medicine,” by Andrew Solomon (The New York Times, 2023).
  • “Watch Oprah’s Emotional Conversation with Abraham Verghese, Author of the 101st Oprah’s Book Club Pick” (Oprah Daily, 2023).
  • “How Indian Teachers Have Shaped Ethiopia’s Education System,” by Mariam Jafri (The Quint, 2023).
  • “How Tech Can Turn Doctors Into Clerical Workers,” by Abraham Verghese (The New York Times Magazine, 2018).
  • Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese (2009).
  • “Culture Shock — Patient as Icon, Icon as Patient,” by Abraham Verghese (The New England Journal of Medicine, 2008).
  • “The Cowpath to America,” by Abraham Verghese (The New Yorker, 1997).
  • My Own Country: A Doctor’s Story, by Abraham Verghese (1994).
  • “Urbs in Rure: Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection in Rural Tennessee,” by Abraham Verghese, Steven L. Berk, and Felix Sarubbi (The Journal of Infectious Diseases, 1989).

• EXTRAS:
  • “Are You Suffering From Burnout?” by No Stupid Questions (2023).
  • “Would You Rather See a Computer or a Doctor?” by Freakonomics, M.D. (2022).
  • “How Do You Cure a Compassion Crisis?” by Freakonomics Radio (2020).
  • The Citadel, by A. J. Cronin (1937).
  • Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852).