To be a patient is to be rendered vulnerable.

To be

To be a patient is to be rendered vulnerable.
The trust required to give consent to anaesthesia, surgery, pharmacological treatment on someone’s, a stranger’s, advice might be an act of desperation
Blind faith…

To be a medical student is to live up to expectation.
The persistent commitment to academic learning, to sacrificing a social life, to competing with and simultaneously loving your cohort, is without comparison
Am I good enough…

To be a doctor it has been recommended to be stoic.
The desire to be valued, respected, trusted, fuelling a preoccupation about what everyone else will think, one’s reputation
But what of these emotions…

To be trust, persistence, desire is to be human.
The patient, medical student, doctor need our encouragement, our help, our compassion
We are made of the same stuff