Why Doctors still matter

One of the things often left out of our health care discussion is the simple human equation. Doctors, often young and often new to America, are the link, that translates between a complex web of technology and information and a receiving person often in physical or emotional distress. The business model of medicine must, if it is to succeed, bend in some fashion to the human model. No one understands this better than Abraham Verghese. A doctor, a Professor at Stanford, his books and essays have helped us navigate what it really means to be a doctor. His latest, his first novel Cutting for Stone, looks at how a sense of place also shapes the destiny of healing.  My conversation with Abraham Verghese: