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Chapter 1
The Days of the Giants
I was listening to a radio program one day about the challenges of modern
medical practice. The show’s guest was Dr. Danielle Ofri, an internist at
Bellevue Hospital in New York and editor-in-chief of the Bellevue Literary
Review. The discussion topic was her July 2011 article, “Why Would Anyone
Choose to Become a Doctor?” The interviewer asked Dr. Ofri to explain a
reference in that article to “the Days of the Giants.”
Dr. Ofri’s response was that it was an industry term-of-art describing the
feelings of senior and retired doctors about themselves and their practices
compared with those of their junior colle