Being a doctor is a very rich and complex career, highly respected, full of rewards, challenging, yet humbling. But before we get to how being a physician is rewarding now, let's go back in time. Historically, the physician was the healer, he was a shaman. There was a fair amount of mystique, some mystery, a definite connection to the spiritual world. Then, as our scientific revolution advanced, physicians became healers from the scientific point of view. There was trial and error, there were experiments, there were many discoveries.

Now being a physician can be labeled as being an advisor or even a proceduralist in an era of overwhelming information and highly technical tools. Still it is much more than that. If all I did was to advise people of their illnesses and perform procedures to help them with their illnesses, that would still be rather close ended. I have a very open ended job. The whole realm of patient care involves the academia of teaching and learning, working through ethical dilemmas, civil responsibility, and even helping with administration.

Presently, I consider one of the greatest, widest open avenues in being a physician as that of being an ethicist. Some of the new scientific advances such as the human genome project, have stirred up great new questions that have never before been asked. This is the time for physicians to take to heart the whole of patient care and be leaders in the richness and complexity of patient care and the lives of our patients. This challenge will be our greatest reward.