Temple University School of Medicine - Skull Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

Page 21 text:

Reading Mosjm.il and Medical Center Reading, PA Crozer-Chester Medical Center Upland. PA Fox Chase Cancer Center Philadelphia, PA 2007 SMI 17

Page 20 text:

Abington Memorial Hospital Abington, PA St. Luke's Hospital Bethlehem, PA Conemaugh Memorial Medical Center Johnstown, PA 16 1! Temple University School of ITtedicine

Page 22 text:

To Be A Doctor Ever since the day you first said those magic words, I want to be a doctor ' you have been wrapped in the colorful fabric of the history of medicine, a fabric woven from the ideals, wisdom, endeavors, and achievements of our glorious predecessors in medicine. The original meaning of the three words - physician, medic, doctor - that describe our profession is highly illuminating. The word physician derives from the Greek physis or nature, denoting that the physician hos his roots in an understanding of the nature of things; the word medic comes from mederi, to heal, and the root med means to meditate or think, so that medic is equivalent to thinker and healer; the word doctor originally meant master, instructor. Thus, semantically, our profession involves learning, knowledge, healing, and teaching. Five types of ethical duties must guide your life: duties to your teachers, to society, to your patients, to your colleagues, and to yourselves. You have duties to your teachers, because they, the pQrGfltS Of yOUT mind, are the most important people in your life next to you own parents. I do not mean only your university professors, but any physician from whom you learn anything - his science, art, ethics, self-denial, or example - that may become a source of inspiration in your professional life. You must honor your masters with devotion and friendship, for friendship is man's noblest sentiment, greater even than love. Your duty to society is to be idealists, not hedonists: as physicians, to accept your profession as a service to mankind, not as a source of profit; as investigators, to seek the knowledge that will benefit your fellow beings; as clinicians, to alleviate pain and heal the sick; as teachers, to share and spread your knowledge and always because you are imbued with an ideal of service and not the ambition for gain. Thus will you maintain the dignity of our profession as a social science applied to the welfare of mankind. Your duty to your patients will be to act toward them as you would wish them to act toward you: with kindness, with courtesy, with honesty. You must learn when and how to withhold the truth from your patients if by not telling them all the facts of the case you can relieve or console them, for you can cure them sometimes, and you can give them relief often, but hope you can give them always. Remember that a laboratory report is not an irrevocable sentence. A hematological determination, a roentgenogram, an electroencephalogram may supply vital information on the organic working of the body, but it is even more vital never to forget that, behind all such reports and data, there is a human being in pain and anguish, to whom you must offer something more than an antibiotic, an injection, or a surgical aid; you must, with your attitude, your words, and your actions, inspire confidence and faith and give understanding and consolation.