Simple yet powerful advice from my small group leader

I am now in my last block of our preclinical medical education, Human Growth and Reproduction. This also means that we have a new faculty member for our small group sessions (Problem Based Learning cases). She is a young Ob/Gyn who just finished her residency in Canada last year. She gave us some very simple yet sound advice during our first session.

1. Whatever field you go into, make sure you learn to rule out anything that will kill the patient. You will probably never solve all of your patient's problems, but if you don't rule out everything that could kill the patient, you are asking for trouble.

2. If there is one thing you should learn in medical school, it is this: Learn to identify who is sick and who isn't.

3. Even when you are tired and sleep deprived at 5am after call, you are still learning something. You never know when that little something you learn will come in handy.

4. Trust your instincts. You'll be surprised how often they are right.