Abbott and Empathy

...A little earlier, I had been appointed college infirmarian. This post was a legacy from quasi-monastic days and involved supervising the medicine cabinet and ensuring that the ill were not forgotten in their rooms.
But during winter, when up to 30 percent of the college would be down with “flu” at any one time, the infirmarian spent much of his day ferrying food and aspirin to the rooms of the sick. My view was that I knew nothing about medicine and that those too sick to eat in the dining room ought to be in hospital.
Anyway, I thought, most were malingering. So I encouraged “self-service” of medicines and suggested that meals would be better fetched by the friends of the sick. Many deeply resented this disdain for college’s caring and communitarian ethos. And, I confess, I did not have the courage to refuse room service to members of the seminary staff.

Tony Abbott (1987)
Via
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