Integrity

I remember when we first interviewed for medical school, one classic example of the type of questions you get asked during the interviews was this:

"Please define integrity."

What a bunch of crap. I thought at the time. How pretentious a question.

But today, while being bombarded by patients at my first day at my new family medicine preceptor's office, I understood why that question was asked.

You need integrity to do your job as a doctor.

After months at the educational-focused Oak Street Family Medicine clinic and two months in the leisurely Salmon Arm medical clinic, I started the last-leg of my family practice residency training at a busy semi-Asian high paced family practice office. Compared to what I had seen before, it was a gong-show.

Between an anxious Chinese Mom who kept asking about her son's cough and fever, two elderly chinese folks who kept telling me their histories into separate ears simultaneously, an over-zealous patient who kept asking me about every one of his blood test numbers, and a whole host of unhappy patients who had waited too long, felt too neglected, grumpy about the weather, and generally unimpressed about seeing a resident and not their beloved doctor, I had no time to think. Moreover, I knew nothing about each patient, the chart was all hand-written in what looked like foreign languages, and we were at least an hour behind.

I rushed. I omitted things. I cut corners to catch up.

And then I remembered, I cannot do this. I am their doctor today. They waited long but they endured to see a doctor. I must do due diligence to each one even if it means making others wait a little longer. I cannot be pressured by patients, by parents, by anyone to do any less of a job than I would in a more perfect setting. Yes it isn't ideal, but the medical care that they should get here should be no different than any other clinic I had been in.

Integrity is to hold your own in the presence of immense external or environmental pressure to do otherwise.

Today I finally learned it.