Variability is the law of life, and as no two faces are the same, so no two bodies are alike, and no two individuals react alike and behave alike under the abnormal conditions which we know as disease.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Every patient is unique; medical treatment must account for individual biological differences.
- In plain terms
- No two people react to disease the same way.
- What can you take from it?
- Treat patients individually rather than using one size fits all.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- How personalized should healthcare be?
- When is generalization useful?
Another view
Generalizations are still necessary for broad medical guidelines.
More from William Osler
To study the phenomenon of disease without books is to sail an uncharted sea, while to study books without patients is not to go to sea at all.
Permalink to quote #21 The trained nurse has become one of the great blessings of humanity, taking a place beside the physician and the priest.
Permalink to quote #23 To have striven, to have made the effort, to have been true to certain ideals - this alone is worth the struggle.
Permalink to quote #20
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