Tag Archives: Charles H. Halsted

Compassion

March 31, 2021

Charles Halsted Davis, California, United States   Formed and found in the human soul lies the wellspring of compassion. Seeing yourself in the other, the other in yourself is the essence of compassion. Selfless caring without condition for the unfortunate ones without voice, feeling the pain of another, accepting without judgment is compassion. Caring for […]

Informed consent

September 27, 2018

Charles H. Halsted Davis, California, USA   Autopsy at the Hôtel-Dieu (1876) by Henri Gervex Outlined by the glimmer of eastern sun, the head nurse says: “One of your patients passed around four. His body has been sent to the hospital morgue.” You are the intern, first up on the ward to see all the patients […]

Tales out of medical school

September 27, 2018

Charles H. Halsted Davis, California, USA   University of Rochester School of Medicine, 1958 In first-year anatomy class, I shared a rectangular metal table with three other twenty-one-year-old men and our assigned corpse, a blank-eyed, obese, and lifeless white seventyish woman. Half of my classmates were former Eastern prep school boys, the others mostly Jewish […]