Around the table at U.C.S.F., Miller stood out. The other doctors wore dress pants and button-downs ”” physician-casual ”” while he wore a sky blue corduroy shirt with a tear in the sleeve and a pair of rumpled khakis; he could have come straight from camping or Bonnaroo. Even just sitting there, he transmitted a strange charisma ”” a magnetism, people kept telling me, that was hard to explain but also necessary to explain, because the rapport Miller seems to instantly establish with everyone is a part of his gift as a clinician.
“It’s reasonable to say that it’s impossible to describe what it feels like to be with him,” [Dr. Michael] Rabow told me. “People feel accepted. I think they feel loved.”