Medic Quotes

“No doctor knows everything. There's a reason why it's called "practising" medicine.”
― Anonymous

“An infantryman’s job is to deliver his enemies into the waiting hands of Death. It is Doc’s job to protect his brothers from Death, to knock him aside and say, “Not today.”
― Adam Fenner

“You are going to war! It is no longer a question of if you are going to go, but a question of when. Look around! In a few years, or even a few months, several of you will be dead. Some of you will be severely wounded or so badly mutilated that your own mother can’t stand the sight of you. And for the real unlucky ones, you will come home so emotionally disfigured that you wish you had died over there.”
― Michael Anthony, Mass Casualties: A Young Medic's True Story of Death, Deception, and Dishonor in Iraq

“I don’t have to worry about what I’ll do on any given day because I already know—I work. All decisions are made for me. The only thing I have to worry about is the possibility of dying.”
― Michael Anthony, Mass Casualties: A Young Medic's True Story of Death, Deception, and Dishonor in Iraq

“Other nights I lie in bed and think about everything and anything, and the only thing I can feel is nothing. I think about the war and I feel nothing. I think about life and death, mine and everyone else’s, and I feel nothing. I think about myself and I don’t care if I live or die. On these nights, mortars go off and I won’t get out of bed. I’ll lie in bed as the bombs go off. I tell myself it doesn’t matter if I live or die, nothing matters—I like it when I feel nothing.”
― Michael Anthony, Mass Casualties: A Young Medic's True Story of Death, Deception, and Dishonor in Iraq

“It might come a time to not follow your passion, so to speak, although it must be prioritized. It may be the case that your passion will serve as the medic, your peace of mind, alongside a higher calling, with your higher calling being the point man.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“And as for those high school students who tell me they would rather be a cat than an MD because they prefer to deal with animals and not to deal with people, I let them know they have it all wrong. Veterinarians get to work with animals. We get to work for people.”
― Nick Trout, Tell Me Where It Hurts: A Day of Humor, Healing, and Hope in My Life as an Animal Surgeon

“Soon I’ll no longer have to worry about death; now it’s life I have to worry about. It’s now time for me to be a man, and it’s the scariest thing I’ll ever do. It really scares me. It really scares me that I won’t have what it takes. That’s a scary thought.”
― Michael Anthony, Mass Casualties: A Young Medic's True Story of Death, Deception, and Dishonor in Iraq

“Sometimes I go into the hospital and have to do surgery just as the sleeping pills begin to kick in. I spend the rest of the night pinching myself and throwing cold water on my face. At night I tell myself it’s not worth it. I tell myself I hate the Army and wish I’d never joined. I curse the war on both sides, American and Iraqi. I wish everyone would just...die...so that I could go home.”
― Michael Anthony, Mass Casualties: A Young Medic's True Story of Death, Deception, and Dishonor in Iraq

“You can't imagine what the interior of sixteen or eighteen cubic feet is like with all of these people screaming, and yelling, and talking, and howling. [...] Not to mention the radio squealing. And the bullets flying. And explosions going up. You just can't imagine the chaos that goes through your head. And it requires immense concentration, and effort, to focus on what you job is. [Tom Kelley, Vietnam Medic from December 1967-December 1968, speaking about events inside the medevac helicopters]”
― Elizabeth Partridge, Boots on the Ground: America's War in Vietnam