•They do not understand the importance of what they learned last year, because they do not know how powerful they will become, how patients will hang on their words, how devastating a careless word can be. They do not know how they can "do everything right" and still be ineffective because their behavior has alienated a patient who therefore never returns or does not take necessary medication.

•Studies suggest that medical students become less compassionate by the end of medical school — that during the process of professional socialization, their original "commitment to the well being of others either withers or turns into something barely recognizable."In between, they have shifted their focus from the patient to their own learning process.

BECOMING A PHYSICIAN
NEJM, Volume 352:1943-1944 May 12, 2005 Number 19
Notes to the Class — First Day
Katharine Treadway, M.D.
assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston.

Passamos parte da vida a tentar ser os melhores, depois mudamos de vida e passamos o resto a tentar não ser os piores.