Learning medicine

Last night I attended an awards banquet at the School of Medicine for physicians who volunteer as preceptors, taking on a student one half day a week for their first two years of medical school and part of their third, teaching them about clinical medicine in the real world. When the program was founded 30 years ago, most teaching was done in a university hospital, where less than 1% of those who sought medical care would eventually be treated.

I remember my Wednesday afternoons with my preceptor in medical school, me always feeling nervous beforehand, but excited to get out of the classroom and actually see patients. I left every evening grateful for the learning, but wondering how in the world would I ever know enough to practice medicine?

I remember my own student's first day, me still wondering if I knew enough--this time to teach it to someone else. And I guess it's going okay, because she nominated me for Best Pediatric Preceptor, which if you knew some of the others who were nominated, you'd know was a huge honor.

But there's a lot more than just imparting medical knowledge, and that was the takeaway for me yesterday. The best preceptors also invest in the relationship, becoming a role model for communication, empathy, integrity, balance, and perseverance. We have the opportunity to remind these students why they went into medicine, when they spend most of their days memorizing the Krebs cycle. We can show them the incredible gift it is to take care of patients. And in doing so remind ourselves of that very thing.