Through tattered clothes small vices do appear; / Robes and furred gowns hide all.

I asked for straight talk, and thou hast given me sweet talk.

For we seem to have created a situation in which medical cyberspace seems more real to us than the sick patient in the bed. What are the consequences of this bargain? ¶ To begin with, there is the gallows humor about the patient who dies with her electrolytes in perfect order (“she was euboxic”—an ironic expression that refers to the little boxes in the medical record where electrolyte values are recorded).

Her grey eyes, looking out on the violet of the night sky, the trees, and the crowd of hilarious onlookers who had not been invited to Buckingham Palace, had a patient and wistful expression.