Medicine: Manners Maketh Man

Has the “bedside manner” gone out of fashion? Not with Britain’s famed general practitioner, Sir Adolphe Abrahams, 63, longtime physician to British Olympic teams. Last week he told Westminster Hospital students:

“This term ‘bedside manner’ is generally used with a sneer, as if there were something sinister about it. But it comes from kindness, sympathy, gentleness, and the capacity to inspire confidence.

“At the bedside, one learns to suffer fools gladly, to disagree and not be disagreeable, to listen to most preposterous nonsense, to act as a confidential family lawyer, and to act as a priest hearing confession.

“The bedside manner should be used as a term of respect and reverence, and even admiration.”