Without Twenty Years of Steady Devotion, One Cannot Become an Outstanding Doctor
Medicine is a special calling. The doctor must not only fight disease, but also deal with patients and their families; on top of that, he must keep his own inner balance amid complex work and life, so that he can serve patients while also safeguarding his own physical and mental peace. Many of the knacks involved cannot be acquired without long accumulation; without deep, settled foundation, one is unequal to the various technical and non-technical problems that arise in practice.
Thus an outstanding doctor needs a minimum of twenty years to mature. Any eagerness for quick results is like pulling up seedlings to help them grow. Having been in medicine for more than ten years, I have gradually come to understand this truth, and have accordingly adjusted my own place in the profession and settled my own mindset.
Whether a person's path in medicine can be a long one depends chiefly on whether, decade after decade, he studies the craft diligently and serves patients sincerely. If he can do this, he will surely build a fine reputation among the people.
In medicine there is too much to learn. Five years of professional study is only enough to enter the door. Throughout his life a doctor must keep reading the medical literature, imprinting what he has learned and comprehended upon clinical practice and setting it down in case records. Only through deep accumulation that slowly releases can he finally become a good physician.
Everyone today speaks of the craftsman's mindset; of all professions, medicine is the one that most requires it. The craft must be constantly refined, the temperament constantly tempered; in the long river of years one keeps growing, and may at last become a good doctor who can not only cure disease but also comfort the despair and anxiety of patients and their families.
A doctor must stand in awe of life and of the law. In the final analysis, awe of the law arises from awe of life, because the very purpose of medical legislation is to minimize the chance that patients' health and lives are harmed. The physician is an official who holds the mandate of life. If his skill or his virtue is wanting, it may shorten a patient's years.
Throughout all ages and lands, the demands placed on doctors have been the strictest of any calling. Every day a doctor faces the most complex of situations: at any moment another person, previously unknown to us, will come to us for care, and his health and life rest on us alone.
To choose to be a doctor is therefore to choose long-term devotion.