It's 11:10 PM the day before this blog is due. My brain is occupied with an attempt to memorize biochemical pathways for the Principles course along with the musculature/blood and nerve supply to the axillary region for Applied Anatomy. This is all new stuff to me. I am distracted. I'm thinking of a Far Side joke in which a student asks to be excused from the classroom because their brain is full. That's how I feel right now - but I know the information will keep on coming and that I will keep absorbing as much as I can.
Articles like this are the forest, I think. Enzymes and nerves are, I feel, the trees. Right now I look up and see the canopy. One cannot know a forest unless they understand how its components work together.
I don't know how the things in this article will apply exactly to my future practice. Sure I could generalize - for example, the statement about "physicians must be honest with their patients and should empower them to make informed decisions about their treatment" is followed by what I feel to be a "but" statement saying unless those decisions of the patient demand "inappropriate care". I'm sure I will encounter this. I agree with what the article says but I do not know personally how I would deal with this yet.
And so it is with most things in articles like this. I generally agree with everything stated. This article speaks of altruism, social justice, community involvement (community defined in many ways, from local to medical peer groups). I think that these things are engrained in me. But what opportunities will I have to act on them? One time things? Lifetime committment things? I am excited to find out.
But now, back to biochemistry.
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Your forest - trees comments are interesting perspective and I think shared by many.
You will have many opportunities in your career to act and show altruism, display social justice, and be involved in the community - many. There are external pressures sometimes to limit some of this - but, the need for altruism is nearly constant thing in medicine - and, I think most physicians get very good at avoiding having the external pressures temper their ability to be the way they want to be - and maintain the spirit of why they came to medical school in the first place.
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