Doctors practice deception all the time. We give vague answers to hard questions. We don't talk about post-op pain. We say "you'll experience some discomfort." If you didn't die, we tell you the surgery went well. But the placebo has to be the doctor's greatest deception. Half of our patients we tell the truth. The other half - we pray the placebo effect's real, and we tell ourselves that they'll feel better anyhow, believing help's on the way, when in fact, we're leaving them to die.
Doctors practice deception every day. On our patients. On their families. But the worst deception we practice is on ourselves. Which is why sometimes it takes us a while to realize that the truth has been in front of us the whole time.
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