-: Most people, I think, if you ask them
why do you want to go into medicine,
when they're not in the field yet,
they'll say oh cause I want to help people, cause I like.
And that's true to a certain extent,
I think you have to like people.
You have the time when it's like yeah, I don't really care,
everybody's selfish.
And I don't think most people go into medicine
feel like that for the most part.
I think you just have to be able to communicate well,
you know, and that's the thing.
So at Kaiser, we have communication classes every year
that mostly is for the new associates
who aren't partnered yet.
Like after three years, you become a partner
and they're required, but most of them still go,
and I still go every year 'cause I think it's important,
even after 22 years, to be able to communicate well.
Think it's a matter of communicatIon,
and it's something they're stressing more and more so
in medical school.
When I was in medical school back the early '90s,
it wasn't as much so, and I think now, these days,
there's more so, not just you know your science,
you know your medicine, you know how to diagnose
and you know how to run tests,
but can you sit there and can you talk
and can you communicate to a patient,
whether you're a primary care doctor like me,
whether you're a surgeon, a cardiologists,
a kidney specialist.
I mean, if you don't have that communication
and the patient doesn't trust you,
it doesn't matter how great of a surgeon you are.
They're not gonna wanna be there sitting with you.
They say communication, just sit there and just listen
to your patient, you know, listen.
One advice I got from another mentor I had is like,
you know, when you sit here and talk to a patient,
go in, introduce yourself.
You know, hi, Mr. Smith.
I'm Dr. Ong, and then just let them talk
for a minute and a half, 90 seconds,
and you have to, you can have a watch or something.
Let them talk for 90 seconds.
They're gonna tell you everything you need to know, right?
Don't interrupt 'em.
Let them talk.
They'll tell what you need to know.
And just that alone,
they'll feel like they have so much time,
even if you only spend five minutes with them.
You give 'em that first minute and a half to talk
and they'll feel like they've had so much time,
and they'll feel satisfied at the end of the visit.
Take the time to do volunteer work.
Take the time to shadow someone.
I mean, I did some of that in high school,
but it's not quite the same being a volunteer
and taking trays of food to patients.
The best thing is to do shadowing.
That's something I'm involved in where I'm happy
to have any students who want come by office,
sit with me for a couple hours, half a day,
see patients with me and kinda see this is
what you're actually gonna be doing
if you go into primary care,
and even if you go into a specialty field,
you really need something similar like this.
Every specialty has a clinic where they have to do that,
some more so than others.
But come and meet with me if you'd like.
I'm happy, they have my information here.
Meet with other people in different fields.
Get a sense of what it is in the day-to-day grind of things.