Appetizers

A common misconception of pre-med students, families of medical students, and also the general community seems to be that MDs know pretty much everything there is to know about the human body from head to toe. It’s simply not true. Going through medical school is sort of like going to a fancy restaurant where they serve hors d’oeuvres, tapas, or appetizers–you get just a little sampling of a lot of things. Newly minted MDs are not experts in anything, really, because that’s not the point of medical school–residency is when you refine your knowledge and skills in a particular area of expertise. The true value of medical education is actually in teaching you how to learn, because being a physician in any specialty requires learning forever. So, for these four years, we learn how to understand and use medical terminology, interpret and generate scientific data, communicate with colleagues and patients, and look things up when we don’t know the answer (which will happen even when we are “experts”). There’s simply no way any MD knows everything there is to know about medicine, and certainly not fresh out of medical school. That realization takes a lot of angst out of the process, because as long as you can get a basic grasp of the fundamentals and are willing to keep learning for the rest of your life, working toward the MD becomes much more enjoyable and attainable.