Wilson pointed out angrily that even children are permitted to take more risks than the elderly. They at least get to have swings and jungle gyms. - Atul Gawande

One wants to know whether, in the end, her troubles were physical or psychological. But it is a question as impossible to answer as whether a blush is physical or mental — or, for that matter, whether a person is. Everyone is both, inseparable even by a surgeon’s blade.

And the reason is increasingly evident: the volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits correctly, safely, or reliably. Knowledge has both saved us and burdened us.

we need practice to get good at what we do. There is one difference in medicine, though: it is people we practice upon.