Regarding the Relationships of Surgeons, Colleagues, and Patients Prologue

Thank you, friends of Surgery, and the European Society of Medicine, for asking me to write in the Advances of Surgery.

I am a cardiologist in the United States, so you might wonder, as do I, why I have been invited to write an essay in Advances in Surgery. I am a medical writer, but mostly of essays and poems. I do have a recent book published, Departure From the Darkness and Cold: the Hope of Renewal for the Soul of Medicine in Patient Care - 50 essays and poems describing interactions between patients and clinicians manifesting the soul of medicine - some of which are in this manuscript.