I am a first year medical student who has come to this point in my
life via a different path compared to most other medical students. As a college
and high school basketball coach for eight years, I learned to study
performance as if it were a science. The most interesting part of athletic
coaching to me was not who could develop the most complex or innovative
strategy, but who could get their individual players to execute their roles within
the team strategy as close to perfection as possible. I am coming into medical
school from a background of studying players to learn how to help them perform
to their highest capability.
--Scott Stevens is a first year medical student at the Sanford School of Medicine
Understanding how to assist individuals to reach their capacity
translates to medicine, and to every other field. The problem that I find interesting
is not how to find new information,
but how to use the existing
information better. As a coach, my job was to find new ways to help each athlete
get to a place where he does his job flawlessly. As a student, my day is now
currently filled with gathering information. There is so much to learn, I feel
as though I may never quite grasp things with as much detail as I would like.
But, I know eventually I will be as prepared as I need to be - just as those
before me have been. So, in thinking about becoming a doctor someday, I now
think about how I will ever be able to keep things straight and not make any
mistakes. Because I know if I do make a mistake, the consequences will be much
more severe than a low test score. That brings me back to the same question
that I faced in coaching. How can I get the most out of what I have? How do I
consider all the data and tendencies that we will learn, and not leave anything
out? So far, I think we have learned about maybe twenty drugs - and I struggle
to keep them separate. How will I be able to do the same, when that number is
in the hundreds or more?
The answer, I think, is to realize that a complete knowledge of
medicine is too complex for me. I am going to need help from other people. In
order to be able to rely on others in the future, I need to start working on
doing so now. The time to cultivate professional, trusting relationships is not
when disaster strikes and I can't quite remember the correct sequence of
remedies I need to apply. It is the days and months before that time. Thus when
it all comes crashing down, I know I will be able to trust those around me to
help achieve the best outcome.
This idea is the ultimate lesson in
being part of a team. That is what makes athletics so valuable, and is
hopefully the lesson that we will start to learn as we begin our medical
careers. Learning how, not just to work with other people, but to rely on them
and allow them to rely on you. Of course the knowledge is important. Of course
it is my responsibility to know it all myself as well as I possibly can. This
is not an excuse to be lazy and rely on others to get you by. This is just
understanding that more can be achieved when people work together. Being a
great teammate is a skill that needs to be cultivated. It takes some humility
to ask for help or to ask for other ideas. The time to start working on those skills
is before you actually need to use them.
