“How do you think of something to write every week?” someone asks. Someone helpfully replies for me: “He doesn’t. He just rearranges the same one.” Many a true word said in jest. But the themes of medicine are constant in time and geography. They are important but abstract, and completely ignored in medical education: doctoring is about reading people, knowing when to listen and act but also knowing when not to listen and not to act. At its core, doctoring is the willingness and …