I found Dr Ladouceur’s comments in the April editorial on the qualities (or at least experiences) demonstrated by family medicine applicants—and those qualities of family doctors that appear to be valued by patients—highly enlightening!1 I very much suspect the same divergence applies to medical school applicants in general. Beyond the need to guard against the “superwoman” or “superman” bias in selecting medical applicants, I would actually suggest that such candidates could well make worse doctors. Although their strengths make them successful applicants, by definition they will be less able to sympathize with the “ordinary ... not mediocre”1 patient before them. And that the quality of sympathy, an “understanding and care for someone else’s suffering,”2 might be the single most important quality a physician can possess.
Footnotes
Competing interests
None declared
- Copyright© the College of Family Physicians of Canada
References
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