I believe that my personal strengths are mainly in my enjoyment of listening to others and to be considerate and kind when forming relationships with other people. I also take responsibility for my actions and welcome feedback from others. Being a great listener will help me to be very receptive and empathetic towards patients’ concerns. In this way I could be a better medical student who can learn not only from lectures but also from the real life situations and concerns that patients will express. In addition, my strength in accepting input from others can help me greatly with interpersonal communication because this would be more conducive to successful teamwork in the future.
Besides my strengths, I also have areas that I would like to improve on. I believe my weakness lies in appropriate time management. Oftentimes when I was meeting patients for the first time in clinic, I had a hard time interrupting them and moving on with my questioning. I wanted to make sure the patients were able to express all of their concerns but at the same time I wanted to make sure that my history taking was comprehensive enough that I would not miss the diagnoses and risk giving mediocre health care. This delicate balance I believe is part of the art of medicine and one which I am still honing. I do enjoy listening to patients and really strive to be an advocate for them by hearing their stories and re-expressing their concerns to the rest of the team. However, I must realize that with the limited precious time that medical students and professionals have with our patients, I need to eventually switch from open-ended to more direct questions.
The above reflection was written in the beginning of medical school. Now as a fourth year, I believe my strengths remain the same and luckily I have not become less empathetic towards patients through the course of medical school. I chose this reflection for the competency of “practice-based and lifelong learning” as it discusses my strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore I was able to identify the role of a medical student and highlight the importance of interpersonal communication as a physician.
I will be developing this competency in the future by constantly reflecting on my strengths and weaknesses throughout my medical career.