The Making Of A Physician

Physician-scientists are unusual creatures. While we are drawn to the clinical challenges of our patients, we are also drawn to the opportunities that our patients’ medical problems bring to science. This book contains the unique experiences and encounters that drew 20 accomplished physician-scientists to this profession. These personal stories are those of people and circumstances that have had profound effects on our career decisions, our creative opportunities, and our lives. These stories also serve to highlight the lessons learned along the way and the distinct attributes of these women and men of medicine and science. Our combined hope is that our collective biographies will enhance the public understanding of our profession, will move people from medicine to science and from science to medicine, and will inspire those who are contemplating this extraordinary profession. “It is a rare gift to benefit from the collective wisdom of so many individuals at the same time. These physician scientists have provided readers with helpful advice and thoughtful encouragement. The interesting and thought provoking essays in Medicine Science and Dreams can be read and digested one at a time or all at once in sequence. They provide lessons to be learned by any physician-scientist, whether just starting out or in the middle of a research career. Schwartz has done readers a great service and has added to the legacy of these prominent and successful physician-scientists.” Book review in JAMA, September 7, 2011—Vol 306, No. 9 by Derek S. Wheeler, MD

An orphan leaves Dark Ages London to study medicine in Persia in this “rich” and “vivid” historical novel from a New York Times–bestselling author (The New York Times). A child holds the hand of his dying mother and is terrified, aware something is taking her. Orphaned and given to an itinerant barber-surgeon, Rob Cole becomes a fast-talking swindler, peddling a worthless medicine. But as he matures, his strange gift—an acute sensitivity to impending death—never leaves him, and he yearns to become a healer. Arab madrassas are the only authentic medical schools, and he makes his perilous way to Persia. Christians are barred from Muslim schools, but claiming he is a Jew, he studies under the world’s most renowned physician, Avicenna. How the woman who is his great love struggles against her only rival—medicine—makes a riveting modern classic. The Physician is the first book in New York Times–bestselling author Noah Gordon’s Dr. Robert Cole trilogy, which continues with Shaman and concludes with Matters of Choice.

Decision making is a key activity, perhaps the most important activity, in the practice of healthcare. Although physicians acquire a great deal of knowledge and specialised skills during their training and through their practice, it is in the exercise of clinical judgement and its application to individual patients that the outstanding physician is distinguished. This has become even more relevant as patients become increasingly welcomed as partners in a shared decision making process. This book translates the research and theory from the science of decision making into clinically useful tools and principles that can be applied by clinicians in the field. It considers issues of patient goals, uncertainty, judgement, choice, development of new information, and family and social concerns in healthcare. It helps to demystify decision theory by emphasizing concepts and clinical cases over mathematics and computation.

In the late nineteenth century, medical educators intent on transforming American physicians into scientifically trained, elite professionals recognized the value of medical school design for their reform efforts. Between 1893 and 1940, nearly every medical college in the country rebuilt or substantially renovated its facility. In Building Schools, Making Doctors, Katherine Carroll reveals how the schools constructed during this fifty-year period did more than passively house a remodeled system of medical training; they actively participated in defining and promoting an innovative pedagogy, modern science, and the new physician. Interdisciplinary and wide ranging, her study moves architecture from the periphery of medical education to the center, uncovering a network of medical educators, architects, and philanthropists who believed that the educational environment itself shaped how students learned and the type of physicians they became. Carroll offers the first comprehensive study of the science and pedagogy formulated by the buildings, the influence of the schools’ donors and architects, the impact of the structures on the urban landscape and the local community, and the facilities’ privileging of white men within the medical profession during this formative period for physicians and medical schools.

Both genetic and environmental factors play important roles in one’s life. Genetics remains a fixed entity, whereas environment is a variable. Environmental experiences in life can have a positive or negative influence upon the genetic makeup of a given individual. Decision-making in the preschool environment is predominantly controlled by parents. Eventually, the individual, being influenced by the many past environmental factors, becomes the responsible choice maker as to which path in life he/she wishes to travel. It is my belief that it is providential that one is given these experiences to aid in our decision-making. This concept was supported by five of the physicians who shared their stories (chapter 10). All were greatly influenced by role models whom they encountered in their earlier life. This influence factor is not a single event, but a continuum. This forms the basis of the concept that the making of a physician is not a one-time event but represents a continuum. For some of us, becoming a physician was understood as a calling. The stories in this book were shared so that others may develop a greater appreciation of their own environmental experiences and consider them as influential factors in the decision-making of their lives. It is also my hope that this book might be of positive help to the young person considering the medical profession as his or her vocation.

Are you contemplating a career in the medical field; an M.D., D.O., Nurse Practitioner, Physician Assistant? If so, let a former practicing physician guide you through his own career from incubation through fruition, through the good and the bad. Let him describe for you forty years of primary care medical practice through a period of breath-taking advance and change as medical care transitions into the future. The need is greater than ever and will require more than a few good men and women. The author encourages you to join this group, but only if prepared to work hard and understand that true satisfaction resides in what you can do for others. Sheldon Cohen M.D. FACP

Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.

Do you ever wonder who your doctor is behind the professional façade? Or ask yourself what it takes to succeed in the practice of medicine? DOCTOR IN THE MAKING is a witty yet strikingly honest memoir about a young man's journey to become a physician. In this book, you'll discover how to: - Prepare for a career in medicine (or anything else!) - Reflect on personal values in times of adversity - Recognize and make use of transformative life experiences - Stay true to what is most important - Be the best you If you are interested in the practice of medicine, feel overwhelmed by your circumstances, or simply want to reconnect with things that are most important, then this is the book for you.