What do years of medical boot camp produce?

As I reflect back to the years of medical school and house officer training, several motifs emerge.
I was taught to believe what I was learning and what I would do was very serious and very important and was a awesome responsibility.

Feelings of inadequacy permeated all of the med school years and it was not until well into the residency program that I felt equal to the job at hand and enjoyed some confidence. Medical school was frightening and at times mind numbing and the excitement and sense of satisfaction occurred only in house office years and beyond. Now some forty years later I look back on that and on all the changes in medicine since those formative years.
In this blog I hope to express some of the thoughts that come to mind from my current vantage point about what has changed, what has not changed and what should not change.