Counsels on Health - Ellen G. White

The Physician’s Need of Sympathy
The duties of the physician are arduous. Few
realize the mental and physical strain to which he is
subjected. Every energy and capability must be
enlisted with the most intense anxiety in the battle
with disease and death. Often he knows that one
unskillful movement of the hand, even but a hair’s
breadth in the wrong direction, may send a soul
unprepared into eternity. How much the faithful
physician needs the sympathy and prayers of the
people of God. His claims in this direction are not
inferior to those of the most devoted minister or
missionary worker. Deprived, as he often is, of
needed rest and sleep, and even of religious
privileges on the Sabbath, he needs a double
portion of grace, a fresh supply daily, or he will
lose his hold on God and will be in danger of
sinking deeper in spiritual darkness than men of
other callings. And yet often he is made to bear
unmerited reproaches and is left to stand alone, the
subject of Satan’s fiercest temptations, feeling
himself misunderstood, betrayed by his friends.
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