Perils of the Learning Curve

Do we ever tell our patients, that because we are still new, their risk of some catastrophe is multiplied by two, that they’d do better with a doctor of experience and skill than my grappling with ignorance, which could hurt them, maybe kill? Just because I’m training At a clinic or a ward, treating drunkards and demented, Poor and uninsured, should I undermine their confidence or deprive them confident air, explain how they are helping, make doctors more prepared? It’s for the good of medicine, the people as a whole, I hone my skills and practice on these retarded souls. The leg lost here in learning how to diagnose keeps ten well-healed and earning. That’s the purpose, I suppose. Perfection without practice, the best of possible care, must trump a learner’s lesson— an opinion patients share. Eventually they benefit But first a few are harmed— experience for progress— but they go away uncharmed.