Average
The hardest question for anyone who takes responsibility for what he or she does is, What if i turn out to be average?
Someone’s got to be average. If the bell curve is a fact, then so is the reality that most doctors are going to be average. There is no shame in being one of them, right?
Except, of course, there is. What is troubling is not just being average but settling for it. Everyone knows that averageness is, for most of us, our fate. And in certain matters — looks, money, tennis — we would do well to accept this. But in your surgeon, your child’s pediatrician, your police department, your local high school? When the stakes are our lives and the lives of our children, we want no one to settle for average.
~ Atul Gawande: “Better”
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December 8th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Settling for average and being average are not the same thing, especially not when you factor in all each of you did to get there and how hard you each work everyday.
You know, in high school…way back…the early 80′s…*smirk*…I was the smartest of the smart, in college, the smartest of the smart, in honors courses, in graduate classes, the more I did the more I discovered I was still too the far right on that bell curve. But then, in Law School, it caught up to me. I became average. Sometimes much better than average, sometimes not as good as average, but mostly, just average.
But I promise, it never for a moment meant I was settling for average. What it meant was, I was finally with my peers.
December 8th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
I agree with Kyre! I am a medical student who graduated with “highest honers” after majoring in biochemistry and spanish.
My point in exploiting that? In medical school I have hardly scored above the average.
Jennifer, by the looks of it, I study as much as you do (day and night!)…I hardly “settle” for average.
Our schools are very, very different.
December 8th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
OMG – How did the shelf go?
PS There is no way you will ever be average!
December 9th, 2007 at 3:04 am
students are students. even medical students are just students.
this quote is about practicing doctors.
a bell curve on an exam is much different than a bell curve in success rates for treating cystic fibrosis between hospitals (Gawande’s example).
my personal life correlation with this quote (because i’m obviously not a doctor yet) is that med school teaches us not to settle for average now so that we won’t settle for average in our careers later.
Nicole & Kyre – i don’t think i understand your comments because i’m still not sure what you’re trying to say… if you’re working hard, you’re obviously not settling for average?
Dr Kitty – no idea! not sure when we get the results back. but it felt better than average. ; )
December 9th, 2007 at 3:42 am
PS: Nicole, you can compare yourself to me all you like, but you know we don’t get into the “my med school can beat up your med school” discussion around here. ; )
January 7th, 2010 at 6:51 am
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