It's the imperfections that make us perfect

I am at the bottom of my class in med school. Going through the marriage I did when I did made everything ten times harder for me. Additionally, I'm not as smart as some of my classmates. As much as that pains me to think (because I'd rather be the smartest! The best! I want to be super-awesome!), it really is true. I have classmates who outperform me regularly by studying a quarter as much as I do.

Most patients would probably never want to hear about my academic record before seeing me. They would probably hear about the classes I barely passed and cringe, thinking me inadequate as a result. Or at least thinking that I wouldn't know my craft as well as someone who'd gotten all As.

And honestly, in the old medical system, they would be right. It used to be that doctors were paternalistic know-it-alls. Doctors had all the answers, and if they didn't, they were bad doctors.

But there's a lot we don't know, and the role doctors have with their patients has changed a lot. Doctors are still well-educated and required to continue their education (after all, we get the MDs and the patients don't), but we are moving closer and closer to having a society wherein doctors are more like advocates for their patients than medical overlords to be obeyed. Patient autonomy is something we are learning more and more to respect whenever possible, and we're trained to encourage patients to make their own decisions.

This past year has been especially hard for me. I've had to confront a lot of personal weaknesses head-on. Despite my lower grades, I think this will ultimately make me a really great doctor. I know a lot of the real-life stuff my patients will be going through. I understand imperfection intimately. I've been a caretaker; I'm intimately familiar with the stress of being responsible for someone else, especially when that someone else is assumed by everyone around you to be a functioning adult.

In short, I've been there. A lot of "there". I've done a lot of "that". I will have a deeper understanding when my patients can't explain their pain to me - my classmates who are smarter and less experienced will miss that. There are sighs and ways your shoulders get bent that just don't mean anything if you haven't been there and done that.

So while my academics leave a lot to be desired, I keep telling myself that they're not the full story. The same way I know I'll see patients who won't be able to verbalize all that they are going through, my academics are only part of the story. I know the tendency is to want a doctor with the best academic record, and by the same token, we all want a patient to walk in and say, "Doc! I seem to have a pheochromocytoma, not a heart attack or panic attack! Please treat me correctly!"

I'll work hard to learn the things I don't know already. I'll study my ass off. But in this very human world with very human difficulties, the doctor we need is the one who will understand us, be respectful, and help when we can't help ourselves. I hope to be that doctor.