Learning from the gobiid

Abstract

The purpose of specialization in medicine is to create physicians with divergent skills and approaches, each suited to a different domain. Yet when viewpoints inevitably conflict, the result is too often distrust and disparagement of our colleagues. Medical students are particularly well positioned to observe this phenomenon. We are sequentially absorbed into one specialty after another, rapidly absorbing the worldview of the physicians around us. We stand with one group after another, watching other teams involved with our patients do things that we find inexplicable and which we often judge as poorly thought out, not patient centered, or even stupid. The frustration born of this type of experience feeds into what have become deeply engrained specialty-based stereotypes. Whole groups of professionals are labeled as egocentric or ineffectual, rude, unskilled, or uncaring. Yet we all start as one group of medical school classmates who get along and admire each other greatly. How can we fail to see that, through specialized training paths, our approaches and perspectives are simply different, and that a seemingly unjustified action probably has a justification that we are now too differentiated to fully appreciate? I explore this issue, and briefly consider underlying factors and solutions.