When We Don’t Have All the Answers: Long COVID and the Need for Humility in Medicine, 2025, Thomas

[Dolphin]

When We Don’t Have All the Answers: Long COVID and the Need for Humility in Medicine

> In these days of aggressive self-assertion, when the stress of competition is so keen and the desire to make the most of oneself so universal, it may seem a little old-fashioned to preach the necessity of this virtue, but I insist for its own sake, and for the sake of what it brings, that a due

www.ochsnerjournal.org

Open Access

When We Don’t Have All the Answers: Long COVID and the Need for Humility in Medicine​

Liza Di Leo Thomas
Ochsner Journal September 2025, 25 (3) 152-158; DOI: https://doi.org/10.31486/toj.25.0074

In these days of aggressive self-assertion, when the stress of competition is so keen and the desire to make the most of oneself so universal, it may seem a little old-fashioned to preach the necessity of this virtue, but I insist for its own sake, and for the sake of what it brings, that a due humility should take the place of honour on the list.

–Sir William Osler, to medical students

Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one.

–Voltaire

 

[Dolphin]

 

[Dolphin]

Her profile on Twitter:
Liza DiLeo Thomas, MD
@lzzza3

Mom of five, emergency medicine doc, long hauler, passionate about patient experience and physician wellness.

 

[rvallee]

In these days of aggressive self-assertion, when the stress of competition is so keen and the desire to make the most of oneself so universal, it may seem a little old-fashioned to preach the necessity of this virtue, but I insist for its own sake, and for the sake of what it brings, that a due humility should take the place of honour on the list.

–Sir William Osler, to medical students

William Osler died in 1919, so he said that over a century ago. Humans don't change. And I must say that "aggressive self-assertion" is a great description of psychosomatic ideology, among many other of the awful things human nature has to offer. Not coincidentally, the same problem behind conspiracy fantasy communities.

I do like the table where it explains why it isn't the words but the sentiment behind them that is the problem, but the alternatives don't really reflect that, sadly. It's almost never the words themselves that are the problem, it's the aggressive self-assertion. It's hard to see this changing without significant changes in how medical students are thought, and that seems unlikely to happen before AI throws everything into chaos. This is where the problems are taught. None of this is accidental.

 

[Trish]

That's a really good article. I hope lots of doctors read it and take notice.