A MUST READ ARTICLE IF YOU CHOOSE DOCTOR AS YOUR PROFESSION

Dr. Hsu's Forum is my favourite blog that I 'bumped' into. Below is his advice to a guy named 'Justin' who aspires to be a doctor, which I think, a 'must read' article for future doctors.
Here is the link to Dr. Hsu's Forum http://hsudarren.wordpress.com/

Justin,
Thanks for your kind comments.

Just for your information, three of my children are in medicine. One already working in the States, one in fifth yr Auckland, and one just enter medical school.

The chinese has a saying, a doctor must behave like a parent towards his patients. We must love our patients like we love our kids. Not aways poossible, human being human, but we have to try.

We need to have patience, maybe that’s why patients are called patients to remind doctors to be patient. We need to have good rapport, we need to really like people. We have to talk a lot, even sometimes repeating again and again when the patients would be asking you on same topic again and again, just to make ourselves clear.

It is not easy to be like that alwaya, we being human, we some time may lose our patience, too. But over the years, if you genuinely love your work and like your patients, you find that you become closer and closer to most of your patients.
Of course, I am running a family practice clinic, in which I see the same patients over and over again. I see my child patients grow up , become adults, married and have their own kids which become my patients too. And that helps to creat mutual understanding and friendship.

However, don’t ever get emotionally attached to your patients. You can be friendly with them but don’t get emotionally attached, otherwise, you will get badly affected, say when one of your favourite hypertension patients suddenly develop a stroke or die, , it can really affect you.

But Life is not a bed of roses. Medicine is a life long responsibility. Medicine is a life-long learning processs. Maybe that’s why I am always learning new things, besides medicine. Medicine needs long hours, need your physical presence and so when your lawyer or engineeering friends are having frequent holidays, you have to be physically present in your clinic to deal with your patients. You cannot delegate your work. You have to have a sense of responsibility.

There is a saying , ” to cure seldom, to relieve sometimes, but to comfort always”. If you can have that “comforting” attitude, then medicine is the field for you.

Try not to let medicine dictate your life. I suppose you play piano. My children are all good pianists, so when they get upset, they get bored, they get disillusioned, they resort to music ,. That always helps. So when you do medicine, don’t give up your music. You will find it handy when you actually practice medicine next time.