What Keeps You Curious?

When I was a young internist, I thought experience would eventually replace curiosity.

I assumed that after enough years in practice, enough patients, enough lectures, and enough journal articles, I would somehow arrive at a point where I had most things figured out. I imagined that seasoned physicians spent their days confidently dispensing wisdom while the rest of us were still trying to catch up.

I was wrong. In fact, one of the things that has surprised me most during my career is that the physicians I admire most are often the most curious people I know.

They ask questions. Not because they lack knowledge, but because they understand the limits of it.

They wonder why one patient's disease behaves differently from another's. They ask how a new treatment works. They listen to a student's observation they had not considered. They are willing to say, "I don't know."

Curiosity requires a certain degree of humility. Medicine has a way of teaching that lesson over and over again. Just when we think we have seen everything, a patient walks into clinic and reminds us that we have not. Just when we believe a diagnosis is obvious, new information emerges. Just when we become comfortable with what we know, science moves forward.

That is one of the things I love most about our profession.

Despite all the changes in healthcare, and despite the frustrations of documentation, prior authorizations, staffing shortages, and administrative burdens, there remains something deeply satisfying about learning. Every day still holds the potential to teach us something new.

Some of my greatest teachers never stood behind a podium. They were patients: the gentleman whose symptoms did not fit the textbook. The woman whose resilience far exceeded my expectations. The family member who asked a question I could not answer. The student who challenged an assumption I did not realize I was making.

If we are paying attention, opportunities to learn surround us.

Curiosity extends beyond medicine as well. It shapes how we understand our colleagues, our communities, and ourselves. It helps us listen more carefully and judge less quickly. It reminds us that every person carries experiences and perspectives different from our own.

Perhaps that is why curiosity and burnout seem incompatible. Burnout narrows our focus to survival. Curiosity expands it. Burnout tells us we have seen it all before. Curiosity reminds us there is always more to discover.

As another academic year gets underway and we settle into the routines of fall, I have been asking myself a simple question: What still makes me curious?

The answer is easy: People.

Patients continue to surprise me. Students and residents continue to inspire me. Colleagues continue to teach me. Every conversation offers the possibility that I will leave knowing something I did not know before.

That, I think, is one of the many privileges of being a physician. No matter how long we practice, we are never finished learning.

And maybe that is exactly the point.

Until next time,

Stay True to Why You Pursued Medicine.

Damon L. Baker, DO, MACOI