If you have dissected a head when all about you
Were losing theirs and blaming it on the fumes,
If you trusted yourself when all examiners doubted you,
And mitigated for their doubting too;
If you can write and not be tired by the curse,
Of being written about, despised,
Or being hated, don't give way to thinking like a nurse
And yet don't look too flash, nor talk too wise:
If you can sit exams – and not make exams your master;
If you can think – and not make thinking your aim;
If you can meet with depression and plaster
Of Paris, and treat those two just the same;
If you can bear to hear the diagnosis you've spoken
Use gallows humour and always play the fool,
Or watch people give up their life, broken,
And stoop and sew them up with worn-out tools:
If you can make it through by just grinning,
Acting like you just don't give a toss
If you lose your faith in humanity, and start at the beginning
And never breach confidentiality about their loss;
If you can fix their hearts and nerves and sinews
And serve their family after they are gone,
And so keep on working when there is nothing in you
Except the voice which says to you: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with patients and keep your virtue,
And walk with consultants – without losing your common touch,
If neither death nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all patients count to you, but none too much,
If you can fill every last minute
With sixty seconds' work, worthwhile,
Yours is the NHS and everything that's in it,
And – what is more – you'll be a doctor, my child!
- © British Journal of General Practice, 2011
