We physicians get so focused, so specialized, we become organ doctors not people doctors. We deal with the disease the patient has rather than the patient who happens to have a disease. This is true for any illness and I suspect for the majority of specialists--though I believe family doctors and pediatricians are more aware of the social implications of a disease than we cardiac surgeons who have had ninety years of training and can only do our work in a hospital surrounded by a staff of fourteen and equipment that monitors everything including fingernail growth.