I had dinner last night with an amazing mentor, and I wanted to share her thoughts with the world–they really made me step back for a moment and re-evaluate why we endure the unholy mental/physical war that is med school. I think everyone can relate to immersing themselves in the isolated world of studying, and despite our best efforts, we all relapse, get jaded, and lose sight of the ultimate goal from time to time. So without further ado, her 3 rules of doctoring, and some thoughts on each:

1) Always put the patient first. Duh, right? This is, after all, your passion. Unless you entered medicine for the wrong reasons, you think helping people is, well…cool, and you signed up because you wanted to make it your career. That said, you soon realize after signing up that there are an unbelievably large number of things that will draw your attention away from the patient, whether it’s politics (read: fear of being fired), financial concerns, ethical dilemmas, whatever. But no matter what, you can’t ever forget: you’re treating a fellow human being. Even if someone’s 100 years old, that someone is someone’s kid. So while this rule may seem inherently obvious, just keep it in the back of your mind–use it as your compass to point you back to humanity whenever you might walk astray. :-)

2) Look cool while doing it. Ok, so at first this rule definitely sounds a tad arrogant, but it makes sense. You wear the white coat of a professional. People hold you to ridiculously high standards whether you like it or not, and you owe it to everyone else who wears the white coat not to mess that up. And don’t just be happy with “not messing it up”–push the standard further. If you’re a surgeon, be awesome at the technical skills you’ve honed. If you’re a pediatrician, help those kids grow up strong, tall, and smart. If you’re into psychiatry, be the most understanding person your patient has ever met. And so on and so forth. Strive to be great unmatchable in your mastery of the field, and you’ll soon be described by those around you as “baller”, “legit”, “hawt”, and other such fashionable words of adoration. ;-)

3) Don’t hurt anything with a name. Surgeons have a slightly narrower pancreas-related version of this in their 3 rules, but basically, this broadly applies to your patient, your patient’s innards (we all had to pass anatomy, right?), the rest of the staff, your institution, the “doctor” title, your family, you…the list is pretty much infinite. Are sacrifices sometimes required? I suppose so. But as cliche as it might sound, it really is our ethical and professional duty to minimize sacrifices whenever possible.

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At the end of the day, we all have times when we’re tired. When life just kinda sucks. That’s natural. It’s ok. Take a deep breath, do what you need to give yourself a boost of confidence, and keep on chuggin’ away. I hope everyone who reads this finds it useful–goodness knows I’ll constantly be referring back to this whenever I’m feeling lost and need a sanity check. :-)