Acquaintances, in sort, represent a source of social power, and the more acquaintances you have the more powerful you are. - Malcolm Gladwell

Emotion goes inside-out. Emotional contagion, though, suggests that the opposite is also true. If I can make you smile, I can make you happy. If I can make you frown, I can make you sad. Emotion, in this sense, goes outside-in.

They lacked something that could have been given to them if we’d only known they needed it: a community around them that prepared them properly for the world.

But in the end it comes down to a matter of respect, and the simplest way that respect is communicated is through tone of voice, and the most corsive tone of voice that a doctor can assume is a dominant tone.