Doctor: (from Latin docere “teach” Greek phusikḗ epistḗmē “knowledge of nature”) a specially trained and skilled person who holds an advanced medical degree and is licensed to practice the healing arts.
My definition of doctor keeps evolving. As a child, I was cared for by FPs who helped set bones, suture skin and fight infections like measles, chicken pox, and strep. Though I didn’t like going, I usually experienced healing on leaving their antiseptic-smelling office.
In sixth grade, a teacher took me to visit her neonatologist spouse. I was awestruck by the life-saving team’s battles to save the second set of quintuplets born in the U.S. This lit a spark to know more about our bodies as doctors do.
In 1976, I joined the Leonia Volunteer Ambulance Corps and got a sense of the special training needed to be skillful. Premed college freshmen students telling us seniors their horror stories led me to study actuarial science while getting a side of EMS. But halfway through the desire to know more about nature led me to change to premed. Within a couple weeks, my definition of doctor changed to cutthroat survivalist.
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