sensitive - keenly perceiving; keenly analytical; keenly penetrating and quick minded. They know people and are not much fooled by them. Doctors in the sole factors, upon occasion, almost convincingly pretend to ignore any thing the patient may have to say. A patient is not only not supposed to know nothing about himself, nothing. Not even his symptoms are taken too seriously until they have been proved or disproved by observation and test: Nothing is taken for granted. And yet - despite feigned indifference - physicians are shrewdly aware of the patients' opinion; sharply discerning to any thing that occur. Physicians so often loathe pertinent questions in banter. In medicine - surgery especially - joking covers a deadly serious business. The more serious a situation may be, the more it is concealed; the more nonchalant, more unconcerned they would appear. However, they are not always able to fool everyone. despite their would be indifference tell-tale give-aways creep into their act. Sometimes this is displayed in a compelling note, an urgent eagerness in questions; sometimes an irrelevant query pops from nowhere into the report or the exchange of friendly conversation. It is almost possible to hear the "pricking up of ears" and the abating of breath in the attentive attitudes a patient may surprise in his doctors. The patient is not the only one who may occasionally be then off guard.