Practicing Medicine Is....

Ten Definitions for my Profession

1.    Practicing medicine is a living tradition as old as trees oozing sap bandages over their wounds.

2.    Practicing medicine is managing the fallout from the impossible coincidence of sperm and egg finding each other in that vast darkness.

3.    Practicing medicine is the huddling together of humans against an unknowable world that promises nothing other than death after life.

4.    Practicing medicine is one of the few professions that humanize.

5.    Practicing medicine is a distraction from the social causes of violent death.

6.    Practicing medicine is maintenance and repair work on Sandburg’s “a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air."

7.    Practicing medicine is an art in the cloak of science.

8.    Practicing medicine is a science in the cloak of art.    

9.    Practicing medicine is discovering the next wonder drug in bread mold and in the dirt beneath your fingernails.

10.  Practicing medicine is telling a story about people, their hidden insides, and their unknowable destinies.