Secondary Lessons For a Successful Doctor

Secondary Lessons For a Successful DoctorA few years ago, when a medical school graduate was interviewed by me, she asked me if there were primary and secondary lessons that I was teaching her as she prepared to enter the clinical world. And, it is true that I did teach her secondary lessons. Let me tell you about some of them.Successful doctors are driven. They want to be great. I remember one young lady in medical school who came to me and said that she didn't believe that she would be successful because she was afraid to fail. And, I told her that if she believed that she wouldn't be successful. Then, she would take no chances with her health and she would choose to be a doctor.Going for greatness is not easy. It takes courage and confidence to make the first move towards greatness. It takes many failed attempts to get the formula right.After failing many times, you must know how to avoid failures. This is the second of the primary lessons. You cannot always control the unpredicta ble, but you can prepare yourself to avoid failure so that you don't take so many losses.After going through many failed attempts, you can learn how to make many mistakes in a short period of time. That's a lesson in courage and self-control. You will probably make lots of mistakes.The third lesson to be learned is that even after so many failures, you can continue to try many times and see the terrible things that can happen to you. After all, you are human and, sometimes, you will get hurt. But, you will still continue to try. You have to persevere and not give up because of the countless disappointments.Finally, there is a lesson that we can learn from all those failures that we can become successful. You must learn to value all the failures you've encountered and use those failures to gain greater knowledge. As you have learned more, you will become more successful and will see that you are on the right path.So, there are three lessons that I have taught my own students in order to help them learn to go for greatness. And, they are: Greatness is not easy and if you are afraid to fail, that's OK; failure can also serve as an opportunity to grow and become successful; we should persevere and we should learn to avoid failing so that we will have fewer disappointments.