The Practice of Medicine

Snow!, originally uploaded by treknpaddle.

 

I spent the weekend learning. Listening to talks about concussions, head trauma, shortness of breath, chest pain, changes in levels of consciousness, belly pain, hypothermia, and toxins. Good stuff. Some of which I knew a lot about and some about which I have felt pretty ignorant (drugs reactions in particular)

It is a wonderful thing that healthcare providers have to continue to be students. It is good that we stay up on new medicine, and it is good that we get to revisit our suppositions and make sure we’re not making too many assumptions about what we know and what we don’t.

It is easy to be arrogant about medicine and health and to think you know it all. You don’t. I certainly don’t. As far as the latest science that I keep reading and the studies I’ve participated in can say, nobody knows it all. Yet we say things definitively. We make these bold always and never statements. The real world doesn’t work that way. We shouldn’t think that way. This goes back to questioning assumptions and knowing that we are all experiments of one. What is true for me may be true for you, but I guarantee we’ll find someone for which the truth is something else.

And for me, this weekend was a wonderful learning experience and I can’t wait to se how specifically it influences my teaching…