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Mitchell T. Rabkin, MD

JAMA. 1988;260(17):2562-2563.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

At the medical schools and teaching hospitals and at community hospitals, too, senior physicians not only educate their juniors in the substance of medicine but communicate as well how to be a doctor. While the former leans heavily on data and facts, the latter is conveyed largely by individual example, that is, by the physician serving as role model. Being an example to others is not an option; it is inevitable in virtually every interaction on the part of the physician. Even walking the hospital corridor, conversing with a colleague, patient, or visitor, the physician is registering with passersby. The impact is more intense, of course, on those enmeshed with the physician in the tasks of the moment, but always the physician is demonstrating how he or she behaves in specific circumstances.

To your juniors, your actions take on normative qualities. Who does not recall mentors from medical school and . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
Beth Israel Hospital Harvard Medical School Boston

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