Ethics in Medicine for medical students

Primum non nocere or First do no harm is something that all physicians and medical students should know. Besides it wouldn’t hurt to read for those who are not in this field. This hub is for everyone. It talks about humanity and our responsibilities. I wrote it as a reflection paper in my med-school. I hope everyone of you could get a grasp of it.

We are born for a noble cause. We are superior to all creatures on earth in terms of knowledge, skills and intelligence. So, we should set our goals .Only then we can make use of the life we have been gifted. Those people are always remembered who have worked with dedication to reach their destination. We need to have desire in order to make our dreams come true. I believe in the line by Paulo Coehlo from one of his bestselling novels “The Alchemist” here it says ,”There is one great truth on his planet :Whoever you are ,or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something ,it’s because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It’s your mission on earth.

This is mainly focused on those who are involved in medicine. The field of medicine has been called a noble profession since the old days. Hippocrates left future physicians with a legacy of scientific curiosity and personal integrity. In his magnum opus ,Epidemics, Book I, Section XI, he wrote :”As to diseases, make a habit of two things –to help ,or at least do no harm.”The Roman physician Galen later translated the phrase into Primum non nocere.I always do believe in the phrase “Think Globally, Act locally”; i.e. Any sort of act that you perform even in a small area will affect the whole world. So ,I believe we should be globalized in this new generation and we should not limit ourselves within a small field. Anything we do be so that it creates imprints with every step and establish milestones as we walk in the path of education and service to humanity.. It is similar like us extracting motivational words from different article we read. First do no harm is a phrase that defines a thought of placing the welfare of the patient above any other matters. We should always take care of the safety of patients. However, we should also ensure that we have good health. For an example; if a person does not have a good behaviour, it is useless if he teaches the other person to be good. We should set an example of ourselves if we want to advice others.

We need to know the different qualities a doctor should possess. Being doctor is a tough job. One cannot easily become a doctor and so are the other professions. He needs to be hardworking, dedicated, caring, loving and confident to face all the challenges of life. Our desire and the feeling of responsibility should drive further to work diligently and with full devotion to achieve our goal. Studying medicine and attaining its vast knowledge is one the competitive educational area which ultimately leads to a respected profession. Besides, there lies the great responsibility of ours to serve humanity with the medical knowledge we have learnt.

Once a person becomes a doctor, he will definitely be busy. However, he needs to balance it. He needs to balance it between his patients, family, colleagues and more. Resilience is very important to us. The more stress e take the weaker we become that reduces our skills and confidence. We can reduce it by maintain our relationships with all people around us. For an example; we get tired when we need to take care of many cases in the hospital. We should not treat them as patients but as our own people who need care. If we closely observe them we can realize that they have their own stories to tell. Those stories could be fascinating .Similarly, we gain more knowledge. Our body is a beautiful creation of God. It has systematic functions .It is interesting to know about how we can cure different disease. We should learn to find joy in small things. This can develop our resilience.

In my person experience, when I was admitted to a hospital during my childhood, I was always happy to see doctors. One of them was always gentle to me and always looked fresh. Now I came to realize that even thought he was tired, he always kept it only to himself. A doctor who seems calm can treat his patients not only with medicines but his positive behaviour as well. So we must understand that our patients’ pain can be healed by our hospitality and calm nature too.

We cure people and prevent their deaths to some extent. It’s good to have role models as they can inspire us. We ourselves have the potential to be the future role models. It keeps us alive even after we die. We need to understand why we are born and what are we destined for. This case is not just for physicians or medical students but everyone. We should be dedicated not to turn back.