to remember

If a physician should rely exclusively upon the stock of knowledge he acquired at the university in which he was educated, and neglect to study after he enters into practice—if he should pass a long life without adding a single discovery or improve­ment to any branch of our science—if he has flattered the rich, oppressed the middle ranks of life, and neglected the poor—if he has neither sympathized with the sor­rows. nor partaken of the joys of his patients—if in his intercourse with them, and with his brother physicians, he has formed no social connexions, nor friendships—and, if in a word he has practised medicine as a trade, instead of profession—then his pains greatly predominate over his pleasures. Such a man it is true often derives pleasure from his wealth, but the wealth thus acquired is the product of the labour of the limbs, and not of the mind: and the pleasure derived from it is that of a mechanic, and not of a physician.

If, on the other hand. a physician consider himself a student of medicine as long as he lives—if he make it part of his business to read all the new publications upon the practical parts of his science—if he feel himself under an obligation to leave his profession in a better state than he found it, by adding to it some discovery or improvement—if he prefer the life of a patient, at all times, to his own interest and reputation—if he has made the joys and sorrows of his patients his own—if he can look around him and see thousands of his fellow citizens, whose lives have been pro-longed by his skill and humanity—if he has so relieved the wants and distresses of the poor, from sickness and pain, as to derive a daily revenue from their blessings and prayers—if he has occasionally restored himself from fatigue and depression of body and mind, by spending an evening or an hour in pleasant society—if he has earned a friend by offices of disinterested kindness and benevolence—and, if he has acquired the esteem and affections of his patients, by his integrity and humanity, as well as their confidence by his skill—then his pleasures greatly predominate over all the pains of his medical life.

–Benjamin Rush, 1803