In two days, I will walk into the hospital with a clean, ironed white coat, dress shoes tied and polished, a tie neatly knotted under my collar, maroon stethoscope rearing to goand I will be largely unprepared for what lies ahead. Along with countless others across the country, I will begin my medical internship, a year considered by many to be the most important in a physicians working life.

After twenty-plus years of school, one would think themself ready to begin a career as a doctor. But if this past week of orientation has taught me anything, it is that we are all wildly nervous for this next year, and that is okay. Part, if not most, of this emotion is a recognition that the lives of other human beings will now be our direct responsibility. While this is a job for which we are wholly committedone that many of us have waited for eagerlyit is also a duty by which we are greatly humbled. And in that humility, there is an immense pressure we place on ourselves to make sure we are doing right by our patients.

I suspect this anxiety also arises from the hard, unforgiving reality that there will be timesmany of them Im surein which despite our best efforts, we will be unable to change the course of life and death. We will quickly realize that while we need not be limited by our knowledge or our skills, we undoubtedly will be by the inevitability of those unexplainable things beyond our control. In these moments, I know we will find our sense of purpose, and I hope we will share our deepest empathy with those in need.

While our medical acumen will certainly grow as we treat many patients over our careers, a much more important measure that most physicians fail to remember is the slow loss of our compassion. As new residents, we are constantly reassured that we will learn on the job, yet we rarely talk about how a life in medicine can easily push us away from the values that brought us here to begin with. The hours will be longer than any we have felt; there will be days and nights where we question our decisions; quiet moments that will seem unfair; and bad outcomes for which we will blame ourselves. But through all of this, our compassion cannot be compromised, for a physician without compassion is hardly a physician at all.