On Being a Christian Medical Student

The Christian medical student is a learner in two great subjects. He is learning the science and art of medicine and how to apply his ever-growing knowledge to the best advantage of the patient. This is no quick or easy task. Much patience, wisdom and sympathy will be needed even after qualification before he can be regarded as an expert in his work, although, fortunately, there are ways in which he can be useful from his earliest years as a student. The Christian student is also a learner in the Christian way of life. In practice, to follow this way -- the way of faith in God through Christ -- is also not easy. He may be side-tracked into a misunderstanding of what kind of person a Christian should be or in what precise forms he should be serving his fellow-men. He may unconsciously or consciously adopt wrong types of thinking or wrong applications of his faith. The following suggestions have been contributed by men and women who are themselves active in medical practice and who are still near enough to their own student days to remember the problems which they themselves met. They outline a few principles and give hints which they hope will help and encourage those who are at present in the medical schools. The wisdom which should be the common possession of all Christian doctors, although it is grounded in "the fear of the Lord," must be worked out nevertheless with a great deal of common sense. - Foreword.