Saying No To Patients Can Make Doctors Very Unpopular
This is my column in EM News for the month of January. Sometimes, being a physician means saying no and being disliked. It’s not a popularity contest! It’s about doing the right thing.
Most of us went into medicine because, in addition to being good students, we wanted to help people. How many oceans of ink and forests of paper have been used explaining that point to admissions committees we’ll never know. Suffice it to say, it felt very good when our professors wrote us glowing letters of recommendation. Of course, we were also saying, “I want to feel good about helping people. I want the recognition associated with the act of helping!” Premedical students, medical students, and physicians tend to be those people who desire accolades and who are naturally well-suited to attaining them. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at edwinleap.com*
