Skip to content
  • About
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Book
  • Careers
  • Podcast
  • Recommended
  • Speaking
  • All
  • Physician
  • Practice
  • Policy
  • Finance
  • Conditions
  • .edu
  • Patient
  • Meds
  • Tech
  • Social
  • Video
    • All
    • Physician
    • Practice
    • Policy
    • Finance
    • Conditions
    • .edu
    • Patient
    • Meds
    • Tech
    • Social
    • Video
    • About
    • Contact
    • Contribute
    • Book
    • Careers
    • Podcast
    • Recommended
    • Speaking

Being a physician was never the objective. The goal was becoming one.

Yoo Jung Kim, MD
Education
November 2, 2018
Share
Tweet
Share

There is a saying among students that medical education is like “taking a drink out of a fire hydrant.” The simile evokes the torrent of information and the impossibility of taking it all in.

The type of people who are admitted to medical school aren’t used to being wrong; to call them perfectionists wouldn’t be too far from the truth. Many secured a seat in medical school because they had made a habit of being right — from assignment to quizzes to final exams to standardized tests.

I’d struggled as a college freshman before syncing my study habits to the challenge of college, and I expected that adjusting to medical school would be a similar experience. However, the sheer volume of information in the classroom was overwhelming — from learning about the characteristics of smallest viruses to the big-picture causes of health disparities.

Fortunately, the medical school curriculum intentionally fostered a collegial atmosphere. My brilliant classmates freely shared their resources, knowledge, and encouragements.

The pressure to do well in medical school was almost entirely internal, based on a desire to be a competent physician. While my grades were satisfactory, I worried that any gap in my knowledge — anything short of perfection — would prevent me from taking care of my patients.

The task of learning grew more Sisyphean during the third year of medical school.

For one or two months, students rotate through internal medicine, surgery, psychiatry, neurology, pediatrics, family medicine, ambulatory medicine, and critical care. In our brief forays into these specialties, we would immerse ourselves in the day-to-day nuances of each field, learning under residents and attendings who had been practicing their craft for years, if not decades.

Moreover, after two years of learning in the classroom, I was assigned patients to manage. I wanted my patient plans to be perfect and to answer every teaching question correctly. To this end, I studied my patients’ conditions, read textbooks and recently published research papers, and thought about how my residents and attendings would quiz me.

But time and time again, it was impossible to get everything correct, and even the best-laid plans could not ensure that the patient would get better. The impossibility of the task I had placed on myself manifested in sleepless nights, stuttered presentations, and ever-present dread that I wasn’t doing enough for my patients or my education.

In my second rotation, an attending noticed my distress during bedside rounds when I answered a question incorrectly. He told me, “Embrace being wrong. That way, you can start learning what’s right.”

I committed his advice to heart, and it was in this impossible situation where I realized that the goal of third year wasn’t to be correct. Instead, the goal was to start building my clinical reasoning under the auspices of my watchful interns, residents, and attendings, who would check my work, edit my plans, and point me in the right direction.

Unfortunately, one realization couldn’t do much to reverse more than two decades of chasing perfection, and I continued to be more critical of myself than I should have been. However, I became less self-conscious about presenting my plans; I began to embrace the clinical challenges and the corrections offered by physicians.

The unbearable heaviness of being wrong dissipated into a lightness of knowing that I was allowed — even encouraged — to be wrong, as long as I was always striving to be better.

ADVERTISEMENT

Throughout the rest of third year, regardless of the specialty, my preceptors always noted my readiness to improve. At this point in my training, being a physician was never the objective; the goal was becoming one.

My rigid insistence on perfectionism had detracted from my education, but my desire to improve allowed me to learn and to shine in the eyes of my evaluators. There would be a time where I would take on the sole responsibility of taking care of patients, but today wasn’t that day.

And I would be OK.

Yoo Jung Kim is a medical student who blogs at Scope, where this article originally appeared.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com

Prev

Beware of food sensitivity tests on Facebook

November 2, 2018 Kevin 0
…
Next

Stop blaming senior moments

November 2, 2018 Kevin 5
…

Tagged as: Hospital-Based Medicine, Medical school

Post navigation

< Previous Post
Beware of food sensitivity tests on Facebook
Next Post >
Stop blaming senior moments

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

More by Yoo Jung Kim, MD

  • Where are the nurses in the Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board?

    Yoo Jung Kim, MD
  • What this doctor learned from cartooning other peoples’ stories

    Yoo Jung Kim, MD
  • When interviewing, remember it goes both ways

    Yoo Jung Kim, MD

Related Posts

  • A medical student’s physician inspiration

    Uju Momah
  • A physician’s addiction to social media

    Amanda Xi, MD
  • Why this physician teaches first-year medical students 

    Mark Kelley, MD
  • Overspecialization in medical education: Is it hindering physician growth and stifling innovation?

    Katherine Bishop, MD
  • Why this physician teaches health policy in medical school

    Kenneth Lin, MD
  • Why a gap year will make this medical student a better physician

    Yoo Jung Kim, MD

More in Education

  • Why young doctors in South Korea feel broken before they even begin

    Anonymous
  • Why medical students are trading empathy for publications

    Vijay Rajput, MD
  • Why a fourth year will not fix emergency medicine’s real problems

    Anna Heffron, MD, PhD & Polly Wiltz, DO
  • Do Jewish students face rising bias in holistic admissions?

    Anonymous
  • How dismantling DEI endangers the future of medical care

    Shashank Madhu and Christian Tallo
  • What’s driving medical students away from primary care?

    ​​Vineeth Amba, MPH, Archita Goyal, and Wayne Altman, MD
  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • The silent toll of ICE raids on U.S. patient care

      Carlin Lockwood | Policy
    • Why recovery after illness demands dignity, not suspicion

      Trisza Leann Ray, DO | Physician
    • Addressing the physician shortage: How AI can help, not replace

      Amelia Mercado | Tech
    • Bureaucracy over care: How the U.S. health care system lost its way

      Kayvan Haddadan, MD | Physician
    • Why does rifaximin cost 95 percent more in the U.S. than in Asia?

      Jai Kumar, MD, Brian Nohomovich, DO, PhD and Leonid Shamban, DO | Meds
    • Why medical students are trading empathy for publications

      Vijay Rajput, MD | Education
  • Past 6 Months

    • What’s driving medical students away from primary care?

      ​​Vineeth Amba, MPH, Archita Goyal, and Wayne Altman, MD | Education
    • Residency as rehearsal: the new pediatric hospitalist fellowship requirement scam

      Anonymous | Physician
    • The broken health care system doesn’t have to break you

      Jessie Mahoney, MD | Physician
    • Make cognitive testing as routine as a blood pressure check

      Joshua Baker and James Jackson, PsyD | Conditions
    • A faster path to becoming a doctor is possible—here’s how

      Ankit Jain | Education
    • The hidden bias in how we treat chronic pain

      Richard A. Lawhern, PhD | Meds
  • Recent Posts

    • Why young doctors in South Korea feel broken before they even begin

      Anonymous | Education
    • Measles is back: Why vaccination is more vital than ever

      American College of Physicians | Conditions
    • When errors of nature are treated as medical negligence

      Howard Smith, MD | Physician
    • Physician job change: Navigating your 457 plan and avoiding tax traps [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • The hidden chains holding doctors back

      Neil Baum, MD | Physician
    • Hope is the lifeline: a deeper look into transplant care

      Judith Eguzoikpe, MD, MPH | Conditions

Subscribe to KevinMD and never miss a story!

Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.


Find jobs at
Careers by KevinMD.com

Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now.

Learn more

View 4 Comments >

Founded in 2004 by Kevin Pho, MD, KevinMD.com is the web’s leading platform where physicians, advanced practitioners, nurses, medical students, and patients share their insight and tell their stories.

Social

  • Like on Facebook
  • Follow on Twitter
  • Connect on Linkedin
  • Subscribe on Youtube
  • Instagram

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • The silent toll of ICE raids on U.S. patient care

      Carlin Lockwood | Policy
    • Why recovery after illness demands dignity, not suspicion

      Trisza Leann Ray, DO | Physician
    • Addressing the physician shortage: How AI can help, not replace

      Amelia Mercado | Tech
    • Bureaucracy over care: How the U.S. health care system lost its way

      Kayvan Haddadan, MD | Physician
    • Why does rifaximin cost 95 percent more in the U.S. than in Asia?

      Jai Kumar, MD, Brian Nohomovich, DO, PhD and Leonid Shamban, DO | Meds
    • Why medical students are trading empathy for publications

      Vijay Rajput, MD | Education
  • Past 6 Months

    • What’s driving medical students away from primary care?

      ​​Vineeth Amba, MPH, Archita Goyal, and Wayne Altman, MD | Education
    • Residency as rehearsal: the new pediatric hospitalist fellowship requirement scam

      Anonymous | Physician
    • The broken health care system doesn’t have to break you

      Jessie Mahoney, MD | Physician
    • Make cognitive testing as routine as a blood pressure check

      Joshua Baker and James Jackson, PsyD | Conditions
    • A faster path to becoming a doctor is possible—here’s how

      Ankit Jain | Education
    • The hidden bias in how we treat chronic pain

      Richard A. Lawhern, PhD | Meds
  • Recent Posts

    • Why young doctors in South Korea feel broken before they even begin

      Anonymous | Education
    • Measles is back: Why vaccination is more vital than ever

      American College of Physicians | Conditions
    • When errors of nature are treated as medical negligence

      Howard Smith, MD | Physician
    • Physician job change: Navigating your 457 plan and avoiding tax traps [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • The hidden chains holding doctors back

      Neil Baum, MD | Physician
    • Hope is the lifeline: a deeper look into transplant care

      Judith Eguzoikpe, MD, MPH | Conditions

MedPage Today Professional

An Everyday Health Property Medpage Today
  • Terms of Use | Disclaimer
  • Privacy Policy
  • DMCA Policy
All Content © KevinMD, LLC
Site by Outthink Group

Being a physician was never the objective. The goal was becoming one.
4 comments

Comments are moderated before they are published. Please read the comment policy.

Loading Comments...