Sunday, May 15, 2005

Good NEJM articles on becoming a doctor

In the last two issues of the New England Journal of Medicine, there have been some excellent articles regarding becoming a doctor...1. Abraham Verghese's The Calling talks about how he came to choose medicine as a career and the importance of literature in developing as a physician (if you were my student, you can guess why I liked this one).2. Dr. Treadway's The First Day describes the experience of learning to take a good history and conduct a good physical examination and how learning these skills go hand in hand with developing compassion for patients.3. Sobel (a fourth year medical student) writes about the language of medicine one learns while a clinical clerk -- its great reading for learning to give the short presentation of your patient on rounds, to an attending or a consulting physician.4. Dr. Goldfinger (no, I do not think he is a proctologist) writes a humerous but pointed piece about the use of medical jargon and acronyms in medicine -- especially in students' presentations.