When fate arrives the physician becomes a fool.

The proverb contrasts human knowledge with the inevitability of destiny: medicine can address many causes of suffering, but it cannot ultimately overrule death or the larger course of events. Calling the physician a “fool” is not primarily an insult to doctors; it is a rhetorical way of emphasizing how competence can be made irrelevant by forces beyond control. The saying can be read as a caution against overconfidence in technique and planning, and as an invitation to humility—recognizing both the value of human effort and its limits. In modern terms, it speaks to the boundary between treatable risk and unavoidable contingency.