Yourself?

Medicine Posting

Well I've got a bit of the flu, and my days are filled with that of other people, so I thought I would take some time this morning to just reflect on what I've been up to so far.

I've been working really hard. I don't think I've ever worked harder at anything else in my life. The closest thing that I've ever done that was so difficult was probably programming in the lab. But that's really a distant second to what medicine is.

But I'm glad I learned programming in my youth. I chose programming over music, and what I gained from it is the maturity and professionalism that comes from responsibility. When you create, you have a goal in mind, a final state, and you make a plan to get there. And the routes you choose to take to get there is governed by how much of the world you know. The knowledge of which paths exist, and the wisdom of determining which choices lead you closer to where you want to go, which ones are the pointless detours, and which ones bring you away.

I was talking to Prof Lee, wondering why medicine attracts the best and the brightest, when all we do is formulaic, evidence based medicine. And the thought he left me with, is that patient care directly relies on the wisdom of the medical practitioner. Good medicine can only be practiced by a doctor that will keep learning for the rest of his life, because the field is so wide, and each field has something to contribute to the management of our patients. There is no point undertaking an endeavour that is easily mastered. One needs to find something new to learn even until our 70s or 80s.

And I take comfort in that. A while back, I was contemplating what I wanted to learn in my medicine posting. What do I want to understand in this point in my life? Of course, books contain all the knowledge in the world. But the wisdom from my tutors are the things that will hold true for the rest of my career. While the knowledge in the books are like the shifting sands. It's good to have as much knowledge as possible. But without wisdom, one cannot apply the theory to practice.

posted by Downhere. @ 8:55 am