Richard Soper MD: How To Be Resilient As A Physician

During the many years we spend in medical schools and trainings, I, Richard Soper MD, believe that one of the most important lessons taught to us is about resilience. Our educators and mentors tell us that our success in the medical field depends on our ability to face obstacles, move past them and to adapt to difficult circumstances. Medicine is a field that will require us to be tough in our every day work – to recover quickly from varied challenges we face in our workplace.

However, I think it is inevitable for medical students, trainees, and mentees to be egocentric. Most people who enroll in medical schools enter with the desire to provide healthcare to patients, with love and understanding. Sadly, during the times when they are pushed to their limits, especially during their clinical rotations, they are forced to focus on their own education and training that will hone their skills as physicians, rather than on the relationships they build. As medical doctors, we tend to think about our plans for the future of our career, trying to abide by these plans as strictly as possible to be able to build an excellent professional trajectory. As an outcome, the thrill of doing clinical rotations and finally learning how to take care of actual patients is accompanied by the dreadful pressure to succeed.

I, Richard Soper MD, believe that although the physical and emotional demands of medical training demands us to be adaptable and tenacious, our resilience that is best derived from our drive and passion to help others is what brought most of us to the field of medicine. One of the most vital things we need to practice in medicine is the skill to maintain our desire to care for and build rapport with our patients. This skill, together with continuous self-improvement and self-reflection, builds our professional character. As what Hippocrates once said which is famous among medical doctors, “where  the art of medicine is loved, there is a love of humanity.”, and where there is love for humanity, there you will also find resilience.