When does it become about the Patient?

Before my philosophical rant about the above question, a few updates:



1) My computer is dead. I have tried various fixes to no avail. However, I have access at work (at least for the next few days) and so I'm not totally cut off from the world. Plus, my BlackBerry can send and receive my email, so in reality, I'm just as linked in as I always was. The only difference is that (at least for the time being), I cannot upload pictures, so I'll have to steal pretty pictures from other websites rather than displaying my own.

2) My girlfriend Andrea arrived on Thursday (July 3), so this may become a bit of a joint effort between the two of us.

3) My days at 1854 Calle Mcleary have ended and I was able to find a place close by which we moved into on Tuesday.

So now, the question at hand: When does it become about the Patient? This is something that I began thinking about during the early morning cold walks to school and the morning routine that proceeded them this past winter. Medical school of course cultivates doctors and teaches them to care for patients in, insofar as it is teachable, compassionate, caring, human ways. But how teachable are the abilities to empathize, sympathize, and relate? I have often found myself, under the scrutiny of a precepotor or physician-professor, thinking more about how I am presenting myself, than about what the patient is presenting to me.

We as medical students are graded not only on the tangibles: whether or not we can remember and reproduce the steps in a biochemical process, the proper drugs for treating a given syndrome, and the correct identification and pathology of cells as viewed under the microscope--or computer; but also on the so-called intangibles: empathy, respect, ability to comfort someone, etc. The question for me then becomes: When does the presentation of these seemingly admirable qualities, necessary by anyone's standard for the caregiver to embody, stop being motivated by the medical student's desire to excell, and start being motivated by a inner wish to in fact BE compassioate, empathetic, and sympathetic? When do you cease to consider your own performance as a physician--especially in the light of so much competition in the medical field--and begin to think only of the healthcare of the patient? I don't know the answer to this question, but I think that my very asking it shows that I have a long way to go.