USC School of Medicine - Asklepiad Yearbook (Los Angeles, CA)

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f MESSAGE TO SENIOR CLASS X. Medicine is a profession which affords its disciples great opportunity for a productive, active and zestful life. As a member of the graduating class, you will soon be in a position to take full advantage of this sublime opportunity. With such prospects, why is there need for a message to the graduating class? It is perhaps, that experience shows some individuals allow the exciting challenge to pass them by. While there is no simple formula for the achievement of zestful, vigorous, productive activity in your medical life, certain principles apply. To begin with, you and only you can be responsible for your activities. Therefore, the first responsi- bility to yourself is to set your own goals. After careful, unhurried study and contemplation, you may begin to realize the desires, small and great, which guide your life and will guide you in your pro- fession. The first step is important because it places emphasis on what you want to do in life. It is un- doubtedly true that unhappiness, through failure to acquire a sense of achievement in medicine, is almost never due to lack of ability to achieve. The real cause of failure to achieve is that the phy- sician has not properly analyzed his aspirations or established his goals. This is the stumbling block. You can achieve essentially what you wish, but first you must know what it is that you wish. The next principal to fully appreciate is that zeal and enthusiasm can be maintained only by an active approach. The passive approach which seeks to avoid responsibility guarantees boredom and dissatisfaction. A dreary existence results. Yet actively attacking problems that you have set for your- self leads to a self investment that is almost always associated with zeal and enthusiasm. You have undoubtedly encountered individuals engaged in the practice of medicine who posses no ardor for their work. These joyless persons rarely learn more than is told to them; hence, rarely learn much after graduation. The thrill of discovery and understanding seems to escape them. They appear to be clockwatching for retirement. Perhaps only in retirement do they visualize, too late, what satisfaction a vigorous, active approach to medicine could have given them. You hove been told many times during your school days that you must develop habits of self teaching which continue day by day throughout your life. You have been told that a graduation, your education is not ending but is just beginning. With these statements, no one would argue. Yet there are few persons who are able to develop and maintain persistent study habits unless they hove ac- quired an active approach to exploration, discovery, and understanding in their everyday work. The passive, dutiful approach destroys the fun of achievement, and without the fun, the habits of self learning fade away. Therefore, your ability to experience zeal in your work depends first upon your ability to set your own goals. Next, self investment as an active, rather than passive, participant in your everyday work heightens interest and enthusiasm. The patients of a physician with this type of approach ore almost certain to obtain fine medical care as well as inspiration to aid them in their own living. Unfortunately, there are road blocks that might inhibit your zeal in your work and continued self education. Perhaps the biggest rood block will be problems within yourself that have been developed through years of parental direction and direction from your teachers in school. There have always been significant persons who have told you what to do. Some direction was necessary and you un- doubtedly benefited from it. You could not expect to start from scratch and personally prove all that hod been discovered since cave-man days. You also had to learn the cooperation that civilization demands. But it is fair to say that direction hod disadvantages as well as advantages. Frequently, per- sons who have been over taught and over directed develop resistance to learning and work. They associate learning and understanding with unpleasant supervision. Development and intellectual growth, in this situation, become most difficult unless one begins to understand his resistance. Another road block to zeal in your work may be unreasonable demands on your time. Great de- mands on your time could lead to a routine, unimaginative approach in which you will not be doing your best; hence, your sense of accomplishment could be diminished. This is not to imply that you may expect your existence to be free from humdrum tasks. These are your responsibilities, too. Nevertheless, you must remain on guard to be certain that your approach to life and your profession does not be- come humdrum. No day is complete without a portion, be it ever so small, of leisure time — a time spent as you wish it to be. Significant work is almost never done by people without leisure. The in- dividual who boasts that he is so busy that he has no time for leisure, deserves our pity, but surely not our respect. For some, the practice of medicine will impose a third rood block to zeal. Many patients coming to you for help will be ill partially or largely because of problems with interpersonal relationships. Often these patients will help create problems which will make your professional interpersonal dealings with them difficult and unpleasant. In these situations only a true understanding of your reactions and the reac- tions of the patient will keep you in a frame of mind in which you can properly render care. Now at the end of your formal medical school training, you should know that your faculty is proud of you and wishes you well. The fulfillment of your productive goals by your own productive efforts will give us vicarious pleasure. In each graduate we have confidence. We shall always be available, not to tell you what to do, but to be of help in any way possible. Phil R. Manning, M.D.