Finding myself

My tutor asked me as a first year medical student to write down the qualities that I aspired to emulate as I learnt to be a doctor and to carry this piece of paper wherever I went. So whenever I felt that I was losing myself, it would remind me of why I was here. The months flew by: a blur of exams, ward rounds, rotations, belittlement, deaths, and, lo and behold, my final year.

Gradually, the pressure built up, and as I was helping treat a patient who’d had a heart attack, I mumbled “Are we done? Let’s finish up with this cardiac arrest quick, I’m getting hungry.” To my surprise, I no longer saw the patient on the bed as a person but as another disease that I had to treat so I could get rid of it. I had become the very person whom I swore never to be. Worst of all, the attending doctor did not reprimand me but instead chose to laugh it off.

As if fate had a hand, I took out my wallet, and this tattered bit of paper fell out. As I stared at the words that I had written on it: compassion, empathy, humility, responsibility, perseverance, topped with a quote from Hunter “Patch” Adams: “You treat a disease, you win, you lose. You treat a person, I’ll guarantee you’ll win.”

I realised that I came into medicine with the notion that as doctors we were miracle workers, but now I know better. A doctor is at heart an ordinary person who has been given the “gift” to transcend human sentiments to carry out the noble duty for those in need. Medicine will fail, death will occur, and when it does we can always offer not only a helping hand, but also our hearts. Listening, understanding, and sharing another person’s grief has invaluable therapeutic value—not only for our patients but also for us, so that we may accept our own mortality and the fragility of life. We are no different than those we serve, and knowing that we have made a difference is the most gratifying privilege.

We cannot rely on every student to have an “enlightening” moment like mine. So, the teaching of medicine should reform and include components of communication, psychology, and self exploration early on, in addition to the core medical knowledge. Nurturing better student-teacher relationships may also allow us to share and learn from real life experiences and, perhaps, help us cope better.

Competing interests: None declared.

Provenance and peer review: Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

       

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