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Showing posts from August, 2023

On Praise

  “I’ve really done it this time”, the intern thinks as he walks through the door. He’s on the back end of a 36 hour shift, and his attending has called for him. Panicked, he mulls over all his actions throughout the day, “Where could I have messed up? Did I send for those investigations? Is he just in a bad mood today?”. He approaches the desk, and the outlook, is bleak. He prepares himself for the worst, and wonders; “Why the hell do I even do this?” I think it would be amiss to pretend that the road to becoming a doctor is straightforward, but of course, it is a rewarding one. No matter where your interests may lie, there is almost certainly some justification for the hardships one may face, but those are long term goals. How does one convince themselves to wake up every morning, to tackle daily obstacles, to be humbled after every mistake? That is what I would like to focus on in this piece. In 1948, American psychologist B. F. Skinner decided to put a rat in a box. Okay, I’m overs