Just Like Me

"Just think, though... The best doctor you've ever known started out just like me!"

Thankfully, my patient laughed.

In all honesty though, I often forget that although the struggle to perfect your medical skills is something that all medicos have in common, a lot of the time, that's where the similarities end.

Every time I meet a fellow medico, I have this innate (and extremely naive) notion that I'm meeting a kindred spirit. After a few minutes of conversing with them though, I may be proven wrong and this can at times be disappointing.

Medicos are people, and people are different. Although some have said that the practice of medicine attracts a certain kind of personality (or, in my opinion, a certain kind of crazy), there is in fact a lot of very different people in medicine.

Our values are different, our motivations are different. Our opinions and approaches are different. Our priorities are different. And often, our perception of our patients and the profession in general are different.

In a perfect world, this would be okay.

However, in reality, it is often hard for a person altruistic in nature to relate to a person egoistic in nature and vice versa. And although this is true in all facets of life, I can think of no other profession in which these two personalities collide to the extent that they do in medicine.

Medicine has the capacity to fulfil the needs of both these archetypes and therein lies the attraction.

It is easy to put down the surgeon who is in it for the money or the psychiatrist who is in it because his best friend committed suicide and say that they've got it all wrong. But labels and stereotypes are poisonous and they pollute our thoughts and behaviour, and ultimately pitch us against each other when it is in our best interest to stand together.

Mutual respect is an easy thing to say, but amidst our pride and respective prejudices, it can often be quite a challenge to implement.

At the end of the day, nobody will appreciate the full extent of a doctor's responsibilities and the risks involved in the profession better than another doctor. Despite our differences, we are comrades in arms and the world needs all of us in every which way we come.