This Viewpoint discusses considerations that might lead physicians to change their practice based on RCTs reporting non–statistically significant differences in primary outcomes, including trial methodology, totality of evidence, cost, invasiveness, and labor-intensiveness of the interventions being compared.

Forty years ago, in 1980, Jimmy Carter was president. Pac-Man debuted. In medicine, smallpox was declared to be eradicated. Additionally, on May 9, 1980, A Piece of My Mind was inaugurated in JAMA. The first essay, “Tuna on Rye, 1984,” was written by then–senior editor Samuel Vaisrub under the pen name Sam Vee. He introduced the column with an editorial entitled “For the Peace of Your Mind.”

We hasten to assure our readers that a piece of my mind...is not intended as a sounding board for peevish gripes, nit-picking beefs, or sundry assortments of righteous indignation, which are usually prefaced by an angry “let me give you a piece of my mind.” Nor is this section of The Journal meant to be a podium for pompous preachments and ex cathedra pronouncements. Nor again is it designed to be a forum for half-baked speculations and warmed-over hypotheses. Least of all is a piece of my mind envisaged as a jamboree of jokes and a shivaree of limericks.

“Your medical clearance, sir?”

As my Italian father would say, since the house is burning      let us warm ourselves, and so

In this narrative medicine essay, a family physician shares the beginning and ending of a near 12-year journey with a patient, helping him reach sobriety that led to a full though short life and feeling humbled to have been so entrusted to travel with him.

In this narrative medicine essay, a primary care physician describes a drawing by a 7-year-old patient who is sitting on an examination table with her mother cradling her baby sister with the physician’s back to them entering data in the computer as an example of a system that is sacrificing human contact for electronics.

In this narrative medicine essay, Donald M. Berwick shares the story of his patient Isaiah with the 2012 Harvard Medical School graduating class as an example of a patient who deserved the treatment that cured him of leukemia but whose life was lost to poverty and exhorts them to regard health care as human right that must be preserved in the clinic and in public.

In this narrative medicine essay, an emergency medicine physician recalls an encounter early in her career when she was asked by parents to make a recommendation regarding ending life support for a young child, reflects on the way practice has changed from physician-centric to patient-involved decision-making, and discusses how her husband’s pancreatic cancer diagnosis brought up a different perspective.

In this narrative medicine essay, a physician reflects on his father’s experience, at the age of 85 years, of getting a physical examination from a new primary care physician that ended up setting off a cascade of examinations and treatments.

In this narrative medicine essay, a physician reflects on an experience during his medical residency involving the family dynamics of a couple in an effort to treat the pain of the husband.

In this narrative medicine essay, a physician recounts an error in which his patient received double the dose of a medication he prescribed, and what he learned from asking the patient for forgiveness.

In this narrative medicine essay, a physician describes the power of anecdotes and stories as tools for public communication, education, and advocacy.

In this essay, the author relays his personal experience with ethnicity-based discrimination and discusses the “microaggressions” that medical trainees from underrepresented groups based on race/ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation experience.

In this narrative medicine essay, a teaching physician uses the fictitious characters Holmes and Watson to dispell the belief held by many physicians—that a thorough physical examination is an unnecessary art of the past. His emphasis: taking time to gather data and observe can avoid unneeded tests and guide accurate diagnosis.

In this narrative medicine essay, an anesthesia resident describes his feelings of loss and unease when a coresident is admitted as a patient and dies of an overdose of fentanyl; this article emphasizes the importance of prioritizing physician wellness programs to help avoid burnout and substance use disorder.

In this essay, Don Berwick considers moral choices physicians face personally, organizationally, and globally and exhorts them to understand that the health of humanity depends on their speaking out against the social injustice of overpricing drugs and services, mass incarceration, and the lack of environmental responsibility.

In this essay, a critical care pediatric hospitalist finds herself on the other side of the office table advocating for the specific medical care needed to address her son’s rare skeletal dysplasia and her search for a pediatric specialist with whom to travel on this quest.

In this narrative medicine essay, a physician finds in the motion of diastole, the process of letting go and filling up, an apt metaphor for how to handle the burnout, anxiety, and depression of medical training.

In this narrative medicine essay, a clinical educator uses her experiences enduring the aftermath of treatment for acute myeloid leukemia to reflect on the difference between physician-teachers and patients’ experience of illness and to locate meaning in what she can offer her colleagues and trainees despite persistent disability.