The making of a psychiatrist: an Israeli perspective

When medical school educators – polished veteran doctors – review data on their students’ attitudes towards residencies, they remember their own long days in the anatomy dissection room. They recall treating their first teenage patient and comforting a patient seeking solace while succumbing to a fatal illness. They think about why they made their important career choice. Thus the glory days of medical school become a defining and shaping experience for physicians, similar to boot camp for veteran paratroopers.