In a post that starts off with a humorous analogy, Plus Ultra quotes Dr. Atul Gawande, in what seems to be the toughest part of being a doctor - the knowledge that the slightest mistake will be fatal, and irreversible.

In surgery, as in anything else, skill and confidence are learned through experience- haltingly and humiliatingly. Like the tennis player and the oboist, we need practice to get good at what we do. There is one difference though in medicine: it is people we practice on.

… We find it hard in medicine to talk about this with patients. The moral burden of practicing on people is always with us, but for the most part unspoken. …There is always that conflict between the imperative to give patients the best possible care and the need to provide novices with experience.

On a lighter note, is that why people call the pursuit of the medical profession, a ‘practice’?